


Toronto in August

by rattlecatcher



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, due South
Genre: Cosmetics, Drag Queen, F/M, Hockey, M/M, Toronto, Vampires, Werewolf, drag queens on hockey skates, men's lingerie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:00:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattlecatcher/pseuds/rattlecatcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day in Toronto in August, when the best bakery in town is closed. Mostly OCs so you might as well say it's almost all original fic. Don't look for an over-arching theme, it's just not there.</p><p>For the GYWO Bingo, a blackout of character traits. Each chapter is a different trait.</p><p>Edited by AuKestrel. <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Honest

_Something is amiss at the local Second Cup,_ William thought as he walked in the door. He then thought to curse Carl for having been too young to see a movie that William had once thought funny. The worst part was that Carl had laughed at the movie and laughed again at the idea of William liking it.  
  
“You should possibly remember that I was soulless at the time,” he’d said, but it cut no ice with the man.  
  
(And really, if William were to be entirely honest, he did like the movie. Say what you will, Bill and Ted had dialogue that showed a far wider vocabulary than was used on Hockey Night in Canada.)  
  
Nevertheless, there were two young men who did not appear to have the best interests of their fellow man at heart standing in the back, obviously waiting for a cue. The mild summer morning was expected to turn beastly in heat and humidity, yet the two wore black coats over black sweatshirts.  
  
Both were pale, quite pale.  
  
William, by force of habit, looked for a mirror, one of those round curved ones that lets shopkeepers see into corners. The problem with them, however, was that the curvature made it difficult to quickly pinpoint a reflection, and William had to trace his reflection to the aisle to the one over to the back of the store to where the young men -  
  
weren’t.  
  
And yet, as he looked over the low shelves - there they were.  
  
Bugger.  
  
In a few hours vampires would be confined to quarters as the blue sky would provide no quarter, but the morning fog had permitted these two decide on a late-night snack before turning in.  
  
But at a _Second Cup?_  
  
And why, oh why had they not decamped with the rest of the undead once the days turned shorter?  
  
_Well, that’s fledglings for you,_ he thought, _never any sense, always some testosterone._  
  
William did not have his Bluetooth in, as Aurelia had told him it was antisocial to wear it in public if he was not actually talking with anyone, and antisocial wasn’t Christian.  
  
Still, he put it in and called Lottie after picking up a bag of beans.  
  
“Bon jour, Sally,” he said in his best Montreal. “Did you want me to bring you coffee, or would you care to join me here?”  
  
Lottie might not have been altogether fond of William but she still understood a coded phone call.  
  
“You only call when you want something,” she said, and he could hear her picking up her keys. _Thank God,_ he thought, and told her he had a novel way of paying back the two hundred dollars he owed her, and if she were to reflect on it she would see he wasn’t lying.  
  
After ascertaining he was at the Second Cup on College, “not that far from your place - you’re still off Dundas, aren’t you?” she agreed to come down.  
  
“But first I gotta get a shower and get dressed,” she said, and William sighed, because hell and damnation, that meant she was at least ten minutes away at her fastest, and who knew how long the vampires would wait before acting?  
  
“I’ll throw in a bag of Kona if you skip the shower,” he said, and felt icy fingers on his neck before dropping the phone.  
  
“So it’s true,” the young man behind him said. “Spike’s a human now.”  
  
“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur?” William said, and the fingers tightened. Another hand plucked out the Bluetooth, breaking it with an audible crunch.  
  
“And calling a slayer? No, I don’t think so,” he said.  
  
William sighed. “This never would have happened if Plimsoll’s was open,” he said.  
  
“Is that a fact?” the vampire asked, pulling William backwards to stand with the other. “We didn’t expect to see you, I know that.”  
  
“Heard you were dead long before we left our coffins,” the other one said. He was chewing on a toothpick, which was actually rather bad ass, when you consider it.  
  
“I wouldn’t have expected anyone in town this time of year,” William said. “Is the ‘extreme vampiring’ fad back?”  
  
The one with the toothpick pulled a lip back in what was probably supposed to be a grin.  
  
“Skateboards don’t interest me anymore.”  
  
“So here’s how I see this going down,” the first one said. “Before you came in, we were just going to see how many people we could take on. But now? Now, we’re either going to eat you or turn you.”  
  
“Haven’t made up your mind?”  
  
“Again, it’s extreme, like you say,” the one with a toothpick said. “See how close we get to the line with you, while all these people watch.”  
  
“I’ll be watching the mirror, see if we can see just when you go invisible, or if you just die,” the first one said.  
  
“And then we’ll either all of us feast or just the two of us,” finished the one with the toothpick.  
  
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” said another voice, and even William turned with an air of _who do you think you are?_  
  
Old habits, he realized. That was chilling, and he might never buy another Bluetooth as long as he lived.  
  
The man had not been in the shop when William got there, although, had he been looking for a replacement for Carl, one who would have been old enough to have seen Bill and Ted in its original run, this would have been quite the candidate, wedding ring aside. Toothsome, that was the word.  
  
The man was graying and his face had the signs of wear that came from hard work, but was still well designed, and with an earnestness in his expression that William was sure he’d never seen before on an adult.  
  
The red-checked light flannel and Stetson did not hurt. No, not in the slightest.  
  
“And you are?” the one with the toothpick asked.  
  
The man in the Stetson cracked his neck. “RCMP, son. You are threatening the populace, and I cannot allow you to continue.”  
  
“RCMP -”  
  
“Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” William said. “Honestly, if you are going to be evil you are at least going to have to learn the cast of characters. The RCMP is classified as the white hats - as a metaphor, not a reality, as you can see - and you would be considered the black hats.”  
  
He looked at their sweatshirt hoods over their coats.  
  
“Also a metaphor,” he added.  
  
The Mountie looked at him.  
  
“And you, sir? I was a little confused,” he said, shaking his fingers by his head in a fashion that William thought perhaps connoted confusion, “by your conversation. These young men appear to know you, so I assume you have a reputation.”  
  
“Long ago,” William said. “I try to keep out of the game, these days.”  
  
The Mountie nodded. William considered that there might be more to the man than just classic good looks and above-average hearing. There was a moment of consideration, and the man looked at the vampires flanking William again.  
  
“In any case, I must ask you to put your hands upon your heads while I call for backup.”  
  
“Oh, by all means, officer,” the first vampire said, and the two of them raised their arms. “We sure wouldn’t want you to shoot us or anything.”  
  
“As it happens, I’m not carrying a gun,” the Mountie said, and William realized that there was only classic beauty and no critical thinking inside him. “This is not my jurisdiction -”  
  
The Mountie’s phone chirped but he barely glanced at the pocket it was in. William saw movement in the corner of his eye, and looked out the window to a man outside with a phone and a young child on a leash. William assumed female based on the pink dress, but so much could not be assumed these days.  
  
One thing that could be assumed was that the man outside with the phone and the child was associated with the Mountie, from the slack-jawed stare of the man on the phone, and William made the further assumption that the Mountie was perhaps known for leaping in without due consideration.  
  
“You don’t have a gun?” both vampires asked. William could sympathize.  
  
_Thank God Lottie's arrived,_ William thought, hearing the door open and her scratchy voice on the phone talking to someone, most likely Jack, and the vampires didn’t seem bothered. She’d used a different tone when William had called, so perhaps they were fooled. Also, she was fifteen minutes earlier than expected. Well done, there’s a girl, he thought, hoping to commend her out loud shortly.  
  
“If you’re not armed, then I think I’m going to go back to my original plan,” the one with the toothpick said, and William turned back to him to watch his face change, and he quickly stepped forward, arms out and head tilted - and there was dust.  
  
“I said I wasn’t carrying a gun,” the Mountie said to the first vampire, who out-and-out did not see that one coming, much like William. Nor did Lottie, from her open-mouthed look. But there was the Mountie with a tent peg, the old fashioned wooden kind, even had a leather strap on it. “I did not say I was unarmed.”  
  
“You son of a -”  
  
“There’s no call for strong language, son,” the Mountie said but Lottie wasn’t a talker and came in quickly and to the point, literally.  
  
“Oh my God!”  
  
William, Lottie and the Mountie turned to the teenaged girl screaming. Lottie pointed to the security cameras.  
  
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re filming a movie.”  
  
The girl’s emotions turned on a dime. “Really?”  
  
Lottie beamed. “It’s a DIY. You want to be in it?”  
  
“God, yes!”  
  
“Okay, when I say go, scream again, then run outside and down the block. The security cameras will pick it up, and we’ll edit it in.”  
  
“Cool,” the girl said, and Lottie said, “Five, four, three,” and she broke off and went to the hand signals, just as everyone knew from the movies.  
  
On cue, the girl screamed, ran outside and down the block, and Lottie shrugged.  
  
“That’s one crazy chick,” she said, and the coffee lovers in Toronto went back to minding their own business.  
  
“Benton Fraser, RCMP,” the Mountie said, nodding to William before turning to Lottie. “May I assume you’re a slay -”  
  
“Slave to fashion? Yeah, that’s me,” Lottie said, staring at the man with about a plus-three glare. Quite mild, considering the early morning hour and the man about to out her.  
  
“Ah. I see,” the Mountie said, and he probably would have said more if he wasn’t interrupted.  
  
“You are not leaving me a widow now that we have a kid, Benton,” the man from outside with the phone and the girl on the leash. She was now up a-pigga-back on the man, and looking about the store with great interest. This could hardly be her first time in a coffee shop, not with the energy flinging off the man.  
  
“I’m sorry, Ray, but there were -”  
  
“And where are they? After all that, you let them go - ah, jeez. In broad daylight?” the man said, suddenly seeing the tent peg and coming to the right conclusion. “They can do that?”  
  
“I found it strange as well,” the Mountie said. He turned to Lottie. “Can you elucidate?”  
  
_So much for the rigorous academic standards at the Sunnydale Academy,_ William thought as Lottie’s eyes widened at the question.  
  
“He’s asking if you can explain,” William said, and took over. “Daylight’s not the killer, direct sunlight is. It’s a myth they sleep in coffins, by the way.”  
  
“Yeah, we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, buddy,” the man said, and William, for one, was saddened by the bravado as he found the man quite appealing, almost as much so as the Mountie.  
  
Oh, good lord.  
  
“I’m late to work,” he said to Lottie, stooping to pick up his thankfully unharmed phone. “Do you need anything else?”  
  
She looked around. “Might need you to back me up on erasing the security tapes.”  
  
William doubted that, considering questionable authority of the manager on duty, who in another month would most likely be starting Grade 11 at Saint Mary’s School for Slow Boys.  
  
“I shouldn’t think so -”  
  
“Are you thinking about destroying evidence?”  
  
“Benton, they got this,” Ray said, pulling on his shoulder and giving Lottie and William a look of _I’ll handle this_ that he no doubt had said several times before. He shifted the little pink-dressed child to his partner’s care and removed the two of them from the premises.  
  
“Of course they’re destroying evidence,” he was saying as they walked away.  
  
William and Lottie shared a look.  
  
“There’s a story there,” William said. “I’m quite certain I don't want to know it.”  
  
“I’m good forgetting it,” Lottie said. “Are you gonna tell Spammer what happened?”  
  
“No, thank you. What is it with you pack of nursemaids?”  
  
“Back off,” Lottie said. “I just want to know if I should be prepared for questions.”  
  
William was fairly certain Lottie did not give Jack an accurate accounting of her nightly rounds. Whereas Carl, he realized almost immediately, never held back from the truth of a situation.  
  
Hell.  
  
“You’re caving, aren’t you,” Lottie said. “You’re going to tell him.”  
  
“Dunno. Probably. I’m not entirely in favor of total and complete honesty but it seems to have netted Carl a rather handsome man to call his own,” William said, and his phone chirped, reminding him of the time.  
  
“I only stopped in for a coffee,” he said. “I shall be glad when Plimsoll’s is back open.”  
  
“No argument there,” Lottie said, and he held the door open for her as they parted ways.

  



	2. Pessimistic

“Fraser, it’s one thing when you’re on the job - especially when you were on the job and you were single,” I say.

“Oh, so only the single officers should be exposed to danger,” Benton says, because of course he does. You know he’s a hypocrite, right? If this was Bizarro World and I was raising Gracie on my own and Benton was still doing his Canadian hermit routine with the cot and a closet, do you think for one moment he wouldn’t be tripping me in order to get out in front of the bullets? You can hear him, can’t you: “Ray, you have a child who depends on you coming home at night.”

We’re in the least park-filled part of Toronto, and we have a kid that can run a marathon, provided you break it up into twenty-foot chunks with shiny objects, like a yard filled with her toys. Fraser is making up for a lost childhood and lucky, lucky Gracie is taking advantage like she was born to it.

She’s running in and out of bushes, doing a slalom in preparation for the preschool Olympics that I will not be surprised to get a flyer for, with a fifty-dollar registration fee and a winning prize of appearing on a reality show. I wish I could blame this on parenthood but the world’s been going crazy for longer than Gracie’s been alive.

Anyway. 

Twenty minutes ago, the three of us are walking down the street. Nothing new or unusual, just two guys out with their kid on a vacation, which is what we call it when Fraser has to go somewhere for RCMP business and Gracie and I tag along and we take a few extra days. It’s educational for Gracie, who gets to see the sort of places I grew up in (no, it’s not Chicago, but at least there are street lights and WALK signals), and it gets us away from the mosquitoes that invade Nupiak this time of year. Believe me, Toronto is insect-free in comparison.

Eighteen minutes ago, we’re passing a Second Cup and Fraser hands me Gracie’s leash and tells me to keep her outside - 

(Oh, and: do not give us shit about the leash.You do what you want with your kids, especially in a city with WALK signals)

\- and then he’s ducking inside, totally ignoring the way I’m telling him not to pull this. 

Because I’ve seen this before.

We’re out somewhere, and suddenly he’s telling me to pull over because he has to jump over a fence, or get the crowbar out because he’s headed for the sewers. It’s always about crime and even when I was on the force, this kind of thing never happened when we were on duty.

Maybe, you think, maybe if he had a kid that would change, Ray. You have been smoking some premium Class IV, my friend.

I watch him, and I know he’s spotted punks who are planning to - I didn’t know at the time exactly what, I just figured it was gonna be a robbery or mayhem. Say this for my husband, though, it’s not that he saw kids dressed in black and decided they were up to no good. No. You can put him in a high school and he’s going to ignore every single kid wearing gang clothes or drug-reference t-shirts and full-out militia camo wear in favor of the one kid who is selling drugs or running guns. He’ll look just like every other kid and Benton knows he’s the one who’s guilty. Or, in Fraser World, the kid who needs help.

So it’s not that I thought he was going to rough up some kids who didn’t deserve it or anything, I just thought that maybe he would prefer not to get involved in some deal that might involve danger since, oh, I don’t know, we were on vacation with our young daughter?

Oh, and get this: was it drugs? No. Guns? No. A robbery involving a lot of cash that Fraser would have been able to track because it would have smelled like coffee? No.

It was vampires.

“It was very easy to spot them, Ray,” Benton says. “They weren’t breathing.”

Excuse me while I go pound my head against a wall.

“Okay, how about you don’t get involved with vampires, Fraser, on account we have a little girl that you do not want to be eaten when you are suddenly turned into a bloodsucker?”

“Ray, I - you may have a point,” Fraser says, and holy Jesus the world must be ending. It’s the only explanation. Also, the only arguments that get through are the Gracie-based ones. 

She comes running back, full speed, runs around us three times and goes back to the bushes. 

“I’m beginning to understand why children used to be given opium,” Benton says.

So while Fraser is trying to talk vampires into not doing what they do best (though again, I just thought it was mayhem), I’m calling him on the phone in the hopes that maybe the ringtone would remind him that the FAMILY HE LOVES IS STANDING OUTSIDE. It doesn’t, of course, but there’s a woman running up the street way faster than she ought to be able to, and she goes in. 

And this is when I get the idea that the place is gonna be funhouse levels of chaos and I am getting madder and madder that Benton Fraser, the fucking love of my life and (other) father of my child, is in there signing up for an ass kicking.

_But Ray,_ I bet you’re saying, _isn’t this about how you want to be the big swinging dick in the room? Aren’t you just jealous that he’s going to get all the attention?_

Listen. There was one time. One time. One time that I got attention for something I did, and hooboy, did I get attention. And a promotion. And a lot of good things in my life happened because of that attention (for example, a child I’m scared shitless I’m going to kill by accident and a husband I am going to kill because of how scared he makes me with this shit he pulls), and you know what else happened because of that attention?

A woman spent years on death row.

So. Back to the reality of here and now.

So I look, and the bad guys are gone, and Benton is standing there talking to two other people. Did Fraser let them go? Are they on the floor sobbing? There are solutions I can’t even think of, but the bad guys are gone and it’s safe to bring Gracie in. I still pick her up, though, and once we’re through the door I alley-oop her up to my shoulders. It makes her giggle and it keeps her from picking things up that we then have to buy.

The bad guys are nowhere in sight and I’m about to WTF on that when I see the spike in his hand and realize the day took a turn into the weird when I wasn’t looking. Also, it’s daytime, and there are vampires about?

Some English guy starts doing Chapter One from _The Idiot’s Guide to Vampires_ and even though I had no idea they could move around in daylight I let him know I’m not an idiot.

English and the really-fast lady start talking about wiping the security tapes the coffee shop probably has and Benton Fraser suddenly starts in with the Evidence Code, and okay, that right there is my cue, and I pull him away from the Toronto Society for Shit We Didn’t Even Know was True Until a Few Years Ago.

“Benton, you know they can’t have this shit go public,” I tell him, and make him take Gracie before he starts in on my language and her dainty ears.

Which really are dainty, it’s true. Someday she’s going to want to pierce them and my only argument is going to be about when she was a baby.

But even though he grudgingly accepts that this isn’t something found in the Canadian laws, I am not ready to be cool with him pulling this shit.

“One of these days, Benton, you’re going to meet someone who’s got a loaded gun, or fangs, or, I don’t know, a poison dart, and I’m going to be shaking hands at your funeral and excusing myself to go strangle your corpse.”

We’re both watching Gracie when I say this, but he stops and looks at me.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Ray. You could just as easily widow me crossing the street when a drunk driver comes by, or slipping on ice, or -”

“I know. Those are the odds. But you don’t have to handicap them, Benton,” I say. “You get killed on duty, it’s gonna suck and I’m going to not be able to deal, but at least I won’t have to think about the fact that you died in fucking Toronto because of a vampire when there’s already chicks with the job description of vampire slayer.”

“I’m not certain they would appreciate your terminology,” Benton says, which, in case you don’t speak Fraser, is him taking my point under consideration, which is halfway to backing down.

“If I die because a slayer kicks my ass because I called her a chick, you have the right to climb in my coffin and break my neck,” I tell him, and that’s me saying okay.


	3. Indulgent

I can’t help it.

That was a phrase that cut no ice with my grandparents. My father would use it, but in the third person: _the boy can’t help it, Mother, he’s just no good at fieldwork; Benton can’t help it, Dad, he’s never had to fend for himself._

The useless third person.

My grandparents were, of course, using it in a moral context (dereliction) whereas my father’s responses were in a factual context (incompetence). To my grandparents, a boy could restrain himself from shouting and a beautiful day was no excuse for not doing chores.

And I agree, whereas Ray would say that a clear blue sky and above-freezing temperatures (which means anything above 50 degrees to him, science be damned) gives rise to an inability to clean the dog yard and a desire go fishing.

How it equates to spending the afternoon at Sled Dog Dave’s watching a game is still not clear.

I used to understand sloth: it meant not making the bed directly upon getting up in the morning, or having a second cup of tea when it’s time to pull on your boots and get to the chores. Ray has given me to understand that sloth is far less all-encompassing than I’ve always believed, and I have, in these past few years, come to enjoy a second cup without remorse.

There are still, however, portions of my life in which duty is clear, and upholding the law is one of them. I don’t say this as the argument it once was: I would never ticket Ray for speeding while I sat in the passenger seat, but then Ray has never given me cause to feel he is reckless. Especially now, with Gracie in a car seat that he can see in the rear view mirror.

But to see a crime - to see danger - and not react? I’d as soon cut off my lanyard.

Ray does not see that my actions are meant to protect him and Gracie. He sees only the danger to me, and doesn’t consider that the world we are leaving for Gracie is riddled with danger for her, and that this is what I am trying to eradicate.

It is an argument we might never resolve.

I can’t help it. 

It is related, I suppose, to my desire to make Gracie’s childhood the direct opposite of my own. Not that I was tortured or even abused. But an improving book upon one’s birthday, I have found, leads to an adult who wonders if perhaps there might be a way to raise children that doesn’t lead to raised eyebrows, to intransigence from the rest of the world on matters formerly regarded as settled, or to loneliness in the home.

I knew long ago I could trust Ray, but actually trusting him took time, as Ray has come to see. I’m glad to say that by the time Gracie was ours, it was almost second nature to take his opinion into consideration. Of course, this did not help with childrearing: we were neither of us ready for the responsibility. We could feed, diaper, bathe and dress a baby - Nupiak abounds with willing and patient teachers. However, directly our child was placed in our arms, it was abundantly clear that a vast majority of the world’s population lived before clothing, reliably clean water and diapers, and Ray and I were lacking in vital basic knowledge of how to care for anything more complex and less self-reliant than a potted plant. 

This led to more reading on my part and more phone calls on Ray’s. Gracie didn’t need clothes, as she had two grown men smothering her at all times, because we heard that bonding is best done with skin to skin contact. I tracked the average child’s vision abilities and for the first week held my face no further than eight inches from hers, moving back to fifteen inches for the second. While Ray was taking care of her, I constructed a mobile made of sticks painted with white and black checkerboard, and repainted it as her color saturation was likely to improve. For his part, Ray started her on Three Dog Night, and Strauss waltzes while feeding her, burping her in a one-two-three pattern. To assist, I painted a section of the floor because I realized he was only four months away from foxtrot.

We were viewed as insane, and yet no one attempted to take her away from us.

“We’re all she’s got, Benton,” Ray said, and he sounded miserable. “Apparently no one cares about her.”

“Surely the parental drive is enough to remove infants from danger,” I responded, waiting for the authorities to descend. 

But we were her parents, and to make up for this shocking lapse of judgment I sought to give her stimulating toys: soft toys, blocks, rattles, beanbags, things with wheels and shapes and noises, and she rejected every single item that wasn’t pink.

“Maybe we need to take her back to the eye doctor,” Ray said, “because that didn’t come from me.”

There was no medical explanation, it seems.

“Ray, we’re raising a princess,” I said, because that was the verdict of the doctor and the nurses, and it seemed the only logical conclusion.

“How the hell did that happen?” Ray asked. It’s not that we were without any socialization, but it wasn’t a very feminine household, and yet she had a desire for the one color that could not readily be found in our possessions. 

Within two months, the collection of pink items outnumbered everything else. Pink caps, dresses, shoes, pajamas, diaper covers, soap, towels and bedding and oh dear God the toys.

In return, however, Gracie was a remarkably pleasant child. Her (pink-dressed) dolly was pinned with a leash to Gracie’s pink sweater, and she ran in and out of the bushes in the small green strip we’d found near the Second Cup where I’d killed my first vampire.

I would kill vampires every day if it would make the world better for our daughter, and I’d use a pink stake if I needed to. Ray is my life and Gracie is our world, and despite the clearly deficient mental health we both display, no one seems to think there is a problem. This, despite the fact that I was recently caught looking for a pink Stetson with the traditional Montana peak. I tried to pass it off as the vagaries of searching on the Internet but no one believed me, and I have come to see that no matter the opinions of my father and grandparents, this is no moral failing or incompetence, just the sign of a man with a daughter.

I can’t help it.


	4. Lazy

At seven-thirty, William should have been up for at least ninety minutes by this point, but the room hadn’t cooled off much the night before and the day was going to be even warmer. The idea of getting up and performing katas sounded wretched, to say nothing of pull-ups, push-ups and obliques. 

He rolled over, looking for a cool portion of the mattress.

“You’re still in bed?”

“Do tell me again about your education, Carl, it must have been exhaustive, the way you manage to pick up on fine details.”

“That’s me,” Carl said. He was over at the mirror, and William opened his eyes to watch him put on a tie. Carl’s shirt did little to camouflage the rather large shoulders, but sadly, it wasn’t tailored enough to show the glorious musculature of his back.

“You do remember we dropped off the Jeep for a tune-up last night, don’t you?” Carl asked, his reflection looking over at William.

“Hard to forget such a riveting moment. Truly, one for the memoirs,” William responded. He tried falling asleep in less than three seconds, a time-honored tradition despite its high failure rate.

“And you do remember that you now live four miles from work, right?”

“Bugger!”

Despite the different geography of the bedroom, and despite the white walls instead of wallpaper, and the picture tucked into the mirror of Carl on the ice with blood dripping down his shirt, William had indeed forgotten that they’d moved.

The both of them. Together.

That they now lived together was what William kept finding himself stumbling over. It wasn’t a problem, but it was a paradigm shift. 

He’d lived with his mum and he’d lived with Dru (and sometimes others were with them, and sometimes they were alone). The only times he’d had a say as to where he lived had been Sunnydale and Los Angeles, after. Even his apartment above Collodi’s had been a decision made by others. 

Carl’s presence in his bed (a very welcome presence, of course), had the tension of negotiations (“never more than three nights in a row” had been what Carl called a _boundary_ and what William termed a _bloody stupid idea_ ) acting as a fulcrum for a see-saw between the emotional connection they seemed to share and the fears attendant upon such a connection.

Naturally, three months after they weathered the crisis that was William’s history, the owners of the house Carl had been house-sitting for the past four years came home for good.

“Why don’t you just move in with me, pet?” William asked. It would have sounded weaker, less strong and forthright, but this was the fifth time they’d had this discussion, which was centered around the theme of _We Ought to Live Together, You Know, Find Some Place for the Two of Us._

Carl’s position was that a space that the two of them searched for and picked out was a space that could be theirs. William’s argument against was that he personally had felt quite at home in Carl’s space, and he’d rather thought that two complete changes of hockey uniforms (including gear and skates, which meant that there were two pairs of skates cluttering up a closet that had done nothing to deserve this sort of rough treatment) indicated that Carl considered Mark Twain to have the right of it in saying that wherever one’s loved one resided could be deemed Paradise.

In point of truth, William’s position was that he had a perfectly cozy little place that was convenience itself for shopping, recreation, and of course, work, and he wasn’t being evicted. 

Carl’s rebuttal was that William was just lazy.

William did not defend himself against that accusation.

The truth, of course, was far baser. A place that the two of them looked for together, picked out together and paid for together was a place that neither one of them could leave. You can’t throw a man out of his own home, nor can you run home to nurse your wounds when you were already home.

They mostly stayed together these days - the only nights they didn’t sleep in the same bed was when Carl had a late shift - but there was still the illusion that there were two places, not just one.

“If you’re ready in ten minutes, I’ll take you,” Carl shouted up the stairs.

“I’m ready now,” William said, opening the bedroom door with his tie around his neck. Carl stared, open-mouthed like the gaping fool William always accused him of being.

“How the fuck - you didn’t shower,” he said.

“A washcloth to specific zones and an electric razor,” William said. “I wouldn’t do it two times in a row but once will do no harm.”

“Lazy,” Carl said with some affection, and William stared flatly in return: _jealous?_

Carl was leaving for work early because he had a breakfast meeting that required the presence of a tie, and he’d chosen one of William’s. This meant he was giving a talk, as he was wont to do from time to time, and that there would be members of the medical establishment not associated with Toronto General. Otherwise, Carl’s neckwear tended towards logos of NHL teams or superheroes.

But as William had breakfast plans, he had not even made the smallest piece of toast, not even for the fellow who kept him sartorially proper, the traitorous bastard. 

“Could we stop by Plimsoll’s, pet?” he asked, getting in the passenger side of Carl’s Toyota.

“We could, but they’re closed this month, remember?”

“Bugger!”

In the end, Carl let him out at a Second Cup. It wasn’t near work but Carl was tight on time and William had two hours to get himself less than two miles. _On a humid day, mind,_ William didn’t say aloud, lest Carl accuse him of laziness once more. 

Two vampires later, William had a box of donuts and a wilted shirt. 

It was for days and events like this that William kept a shirt at work. Clement weather could not be counted upon, and one never knew when one’s … ride to work would refuse to wait while one stepped into a shop for a brief moment, leaving one to the vagaries of the Toronto transit system.

 _Well, nothing an iron wouldn’t fix,_ he decided as he put on the new shirt and replaced his tie.

The stairs creaked above him. “You brought donuts?”

“I did,” he answered. “What’s the state of the reading room?”

“I’m going to run the vacuum,” came the reply, which was partially muffled by a baked good.

“You should probably take a break first, finish your pastry,” William said, and Nigel was smart enough to recognize a threat when he heard one, because there was an aggrieved sigh. 

“I came downstairs to check the schedule,” Nigel said. “If we didn’t have a reading until one-thirty, then I thought I should do some restocking first.”

“And that,” William said, coming out of the washroom, “is when you decided that a donut came first.”

Nigel scowled. “You brought donuts. I was just showing gratitude.”

“Bollocks. Save that for Plimsoll’s, mate, these aren’t the fancies.”

Nigel, having confirmed that there was a reading in the morning (“Stations of Persephone: Everyday Devotion of Nature and the Divine”) as well as a one-thirty (“Elephant Stories,” ages four and five), disappeared back upstairs.

Once the decision was made that William and Carl would indeed both move came the question of what to do about the apartment upstairs. Since William owned the building, it was his to decide, whether to rent it out or leave it empty, or…

 _Poets & Writers_ said they’d have someone come interview William the next time they did an issue devoted to book tours, and William put aside worrying about his photograph being circulated until then. Carl pointed out that the cross-section of demons who might want him dead and the readership of P&W was probably pretty small. “Even smaller for slayers, eh.”

“I should imagine this is why the Sunnydale Academy will never be seen as a beacon of higher education,” William had responded.

The apartment was turned into a place for readings and parties as well as a guest room for the touring writers to stay in overnight. They’d already had a few people stay, and the money that came in was well worth the extra work.

It was seen as efficient by most people. Carl, of course, had the right of it even if William would never admit to it. It was William’s space, given him by the still-poorly-understood bureaucracy of an afterworld. Perhaps moving out of the space had broken the parole, but William doubted that. Still, he was happy to know that Carl had no interest in moving from the metrop.

He didn’t hope to get rich from the bookstore, and didn’t want more than to live a quiet and good life. Most of Carl’s dreams were similarly quiet, but William assured him that if the NHL came calling he’d be happy to go sit with the other players’ wives.

Truly, though, he couldn’t see another person to calling that apartment home, or rather… he _could_ see the person, but he didn’t know who it was. And until such time, it was an annex for Collodi’s, and that was good enough for him.

And now he had a proper home with a yard and a garden and a roof that only had another three years and a mortgage and a basement with a mildew problem and dear God why had they bought this place?

They bought it because directly upon entering, they both felt at home. It was as if the house had removed their coats and all their worries. William and Carl looked at each other when this happened, and saw that the other had experienced something (suspecting the same feeling and confirming it moments later when they went into the kitchen with the realtor still in the other room.

There were no ghosts or shades, no trap. Carl ran a few spells that he was capable of running, read the cards and the leaves and found nothing. Aurelia did her own work and declared the house clean and happy, with no explanation as to why.

William, having left behind those sorts of thing, looked the house up in the hall of records, and found it had been originally built by Augustus Morton in 1928. Morton, an engineer, drew up the plans himself and oversaw the workmen. This would most likely explain the utilitarian aspect of the blueprints, all save the bay windows, which were presumed to have been added at the request of Mrs. Morton. Three children grew up here, with Penny (the oldest) living here until her death. It was her siblings’ offspring who were selling, and happy were they with the final price. 

“They ought to be happy,” William said as they stared at washers and dryers, “made out like bandits.”

“Raccoons,” Carl said.

William raised an eyebrow, and Carl shrugged.

“Always heard raccoons called bandits, so now I hear bandits, I think raccoons.”

William snorted, pulled on his arm.

“Come along, pet. You’ve just proved that neither one of us should be spending more money today.”

While finishing the house, they stayed at Collodi’s. Time that had previously been considered “free” was now spent plastering, painting, staining, buffing, waxing - “Seems like every sort of ‘ing’ except killing,” William said. As if in reply, Carl smashed his hand against a wall. 

“Moth,” he said.

“Very good,” William replied. “You’ve completed the list.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d be pleased. I suppose this means you want cedar in the closets.”

“Might as well, seeing we’ve already spent a king’s ransom,” he said, turning back to removing built-up wax off the mantel in hopes of freeing (without damaging) the hand-painted tiles beneath. It was William’s opinion that some sort of experimentation had taken place in the seventies involving sand candles and psychotropics.

Carl pulled him from behind, his chest sweaty but this was not a deterrent, as far as William was concerned.

“Be dreamy with me for a moment,” Carl said, a soft whisper in his ear, “and imagine what our home is going to be like once this is all over.”

“What I’m dreaming of is not working every bloody day and then coming home and working every bloody night,” William said, and Carl laughed.

“Lazy,” he said quietly, more of a hum than an accusation, and William agreed in the same manner, _too right, mate._


	5. Nurturing

Well, a morning walk gets interrupted by a vampire kill, hell, that’s life, right?

But Gracie getting a rash? THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN.

If Fraser or me had broken out into a rash, we’d probably have done something about it only after giving it time to heal itself, which is something the doctors refer to as “amputation prep.”

When we first notice the rash we’re back at the hotel, and Fraser has about ten minutes before he’s supposed to report to the conference (which is how he puts it - I’m thinking he can give the opener a miss, but that’s me and not him). I call our doctor while Fraser makes sure the rash hasn’t spread in the last 30 seconds. The doctor wants to spend time talking about how it’s not even six in the morning in Nupiak rather than the sudden flush on our kid’s chest, shoulders and arms. 

I tell her, “Lady, I was a cop in Chicago for twenty years. Off-duty is another way of saying dead.”

You know what this gets us? A totally useless “It’s probably just some contact dermatitis, Ray,” and a suggestion that we take her to a doctor in Toronto if there’s swelling or weeping.

“I _am_ weeping,” I shout at the phone. 

“Ray, you and Ben are the two biggest pussies in the province,” she says, and hangs up on me.

“What did she say?” Benton asks.

“She said to take her in, but it’s probably nothing,” I say because a) Fraser doesn’t need the stress and 2) I can read between the lines.

Unfortunately, Fraser’s got meetings all day, and without an appointment, we’re probably gonna be stuck at the ER for a while. Well - if this is anything like that time she had a cold in Vancouver, I mean.

I’m beginning to rethink my idea that she should see big cities. Nupiak’s plenty big.

“Fraser, I’ll take her,” I say. It’s what I did in Vancouver. 

Benton’s torn. He thinks RCMP is a sacred duty and part of the reason to go to work and put away the bad guys is to stop problems before they reach Gracie. Believe it or not, that’s why he went to stab a vampire.

No, seriously.

Anyway, it’s times like this that he’s scared shitless he’s going to do the wrong thing. Go to work or take the baby to the hospital?

Luckily, when we’re on vacation, I take over as Gracie’s everything, and even though I’d rather have him with me at things like this because he’s better with people, and words, and getting people to do things without having to threaten (also because Doctor Garcia never calls Fraser a pussy to his face), I can deal, at least long enough to find out if I’m gonna need him pronto.

So that’s me in the rental car heading to Toronto General, and we go off to the nearest urgent care. Gracie is hap-hap-happy because she’s a brave girl who doesn’t complain. She could be an actress, she’s so good at acting like there’s not a problem.

Since it’s a weekday before noon, we get lucky and only wait about two hours before someone can see us. Gracie’s a saint this whole time - only wants a juice box and her dolly and pretends that the rash isn’t bothering her one tiny bit. So once we get a room we also get a junior assistant who pronounces it contact dermatitis, which I might have gone with if he hadn’t actually pronounced it _derma **tit** tus,_ which even _I_ know is wrong. I demand they bring in an actual doctor, and a skinny guy with a beard named Dornbach comes in, looks at Gracie and asks the standard small talk questions, after which he says it’s not contact dermatitis, it’s just a heat rash because she’s from upper BC and she’s wearing a sweater in Toronto _in August._

“Mr. Kowalski, she’s fine,” Dornbach says. “You might want to consider Prozac, though.”

I know it’s important not to yell at kids, or yell around them, but I let him know he’s a hack and a charlemagne and once I get back to Nupiak I’ll -

“Excuse me? Mr. Kowalski?” I turn around, and _whoa._

“Spammer? What are you doing here? You quit the team or something?” I ask, because it’s one third of the Lame Line standing in front of me wearing a tie and a white coat that belongs to some guy named Spanek.

Turns out time has flown, and the kid’s now a doctor, for Christ’s sake. He was passing by, heard my voice, figured it was me. How do you like that? The doctors here are shit but the hockey players are true blue, even if they play for the red and white.

He takes over for Dornbach, who runs away with his tail between his legs, and takes a look at my girl. He notices right away that she’s beautiful and smart, and he listens to her heart, looks in her ears and up her nose, and then gets something that he rubs on her. He tells me she just needs one application, and to keep her in a Chux until I can get her back to the hotel and change into a t-shirt. 

“After that, dress her lightly - you don’t want a wool sweater keeping the heat in, not with this sort of rash,” he says, which makes a lot more sense than saying the wool is what’s causing the problem.

I shake his hand, tell him to say hello to the others if he ever sees them, and he tells me to say hello to Corporal Fraser because Smithbauer knows how to coach right.

Gracie has been seen by an expert now, and I can head back to the hotel feeling relieved, texting Fraser to let him know ASAP. We’d do anything for her. Anything. 

I wonder if Smithbauer works with kids.


	6. Flaky

“You have no soul,” Judy Portman hissed at Everett Campbell as he put a box of croissants down on the table.

“Excuse me? I brought baked goods.”

“You called this meeting in August,” Abe Salter said, “and brought croissants you bought at Canadian Tire.”

“School starts in three weeks,” Campbell replied, “and you’re welcome.”

Salter opened the box and picked up a croissant. He pulled it apart. The interior was stretchy and the crust was less flaky-like-a-croissant and more flaky-like-dandruff. He dropped it and sat down.

Michel had been sitting at the base of the conference table, feeling no need to be involved in this discussion. 

“Okay, let’s get this meeting going,” Campbell said. “Michel, you have the minutes? Get us up to speed.”

The minutes were from the June meeting of the Language Arts and Humanities Coalition of Dunsany High School, and the action points at that time had landed largely on Campbell to push the administration for more resources. There were future points, too, and those were for all of them to accomplish in the next month. Michel had finished seventy percent of his plan, and the rest of it had to do with getting his room and the lobby display case ready for school to begin.

This was an annual ritual, and Michel was as ahead of the game as Salter was, and Judy was done and already working on a design for the October display case. Everett, of course, had not approached administration over the summer.

You could set a broken clock by how the man worked, Michel thought. 

“Campbell, if you’d asked us to meet last week -”

“And cut into my vacation? No thanks!”

“Then you could have talked with Mercer before the funding was gone,” Salter said, and again, the argument was just the same as last summer.

“Yeah, I meant to talk to him that last week of school,” Campbell said with a sigh. He really did seem irritated with himself, and this at least was new. Most of the time he defended all his actions and pushed with an offense of if any of you want to trade places with me I would gladly give up my position that he knew no one would ever take him up on. Michel assumed the self-blame was a deke.

Every year they lost ground with the school and the district, and every year Porter promised and did nothing, and every year there was more to do with less money and even less time, because it’s not like Campbell - 

Even the baked goods weren’t heartfelt. 

“This does seem to be the same sounds as last year,” Michel said, because the decision had been made. 

In the past, Michel had been about ultimatums and promises, both the ones he made and the ones he demanded. Life was simpler now, he sometimes thought, but to be honest, at times he missed being able to casually promise what he knew he wouldn’t deliver. It could make a moment easier, even if it sold away the future.

“Oh, now you got a problem, too?” Campbell asked, a sneer, a you know I don’t need this grief so how about one of you take over hovering in the air, and the others started to sigh and discount it.

“Oh, I can make do, Campbell, I mean, it’s not a bleeding war zone and we can buckle down and do the job in front of us. But if it’s all the same to you, mate, I could do without the annual charade of gonna-do and meant-to-do.”

“If you think it’s so easy, you do it,” Campbell said, sitting forward with a tight smile.

“All right,” Michel said.

“What?” Campbell asked.

“Michel, wait -”

“I said I’ll take it on,” Michel said. 

No one quite knew what to do and no one said a word, least of all Campbell, who stared at Michel. Michel nodded to him, and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m not looking to give this up,” Campbell said.

“Right, well, at this time, I’m asking you to do just that,” Michel said. He looked around the table. “I think it’s time to shake things up. Abe, are you keen on inventory, or you think Judy should have a run at it?”

“Oh, I’d be happy to take inventory if you want security,” Judy said, getting out her keys. 

“Straight up switch,” Abe said, nodding. “I like it. Judy and I both have to check in with the front office on ours, so that’s even. Everett, you ought to try being secretary for a year, see what you think.”

“But -”

“And Michel, would you be interested in bringing pastries next time?” Judy said.

“I can’t bring Plimsoll’s until September,” he warned, and both Judy and Abe seemed to think that to be an acceptable compromise. 

Abe slapped Campbell on the back. “Congratulations, you no longer have to deal with administration.”

“Yeah, I -”

“Right, let’s get this started,” Michel said, and started the meeting.


	7. Loyal

Lottie got a pastry and a coffee to go and went to the park. She wasn’t there at this hour too often. Daylight sort of messed up her view of the place: the meadow wasn’t a space to run to so that you had freedom of movement, it was a place people ran in - no, jogged in - jogging was something slayers did when they were on the injured reserve with a torn rotator cuff - and the trees were where kids climbed trees in search of the things they’d thrown up into the trees. She wanted to call out warnings, but first, she stopped and listened, studied the movements of the underbrush.

No, no vampires.

Feeling ballsy, she headed for a bench in the shade and sat down.

This was the first time Billy had called her since, well, the first time he’d called her. The first time, though, had been to bitch at her about cutting Spammer out. She didn’t like being reminded that was pretty much what had happened. Billy being in the right wasn’t going to sit well anytime soon.

But he’d called to say _hey, vampires,_ so she had to pay attention to that. Even though - _August?_

 _What the fuck was up with that,_ Lottie wondered.

She was balancing a lot of responsibilities right now, and it didn’t help when one of them went critical. It said something about Lottie’s situation that the easy thing on her plate was to go kill vampires. 

And then exchange the witty banter with the bystanders - Billy at least had that part down. Of course, he’d had practice. 

The academy had had a collective choking fit over the discovery that Spike - the former and current William Pratt - was back in the flesh. That it was human flesh was another fit, and the fact that he was dating her brother was one of those quiet _eyes burning a hole in the carpet_ fits that told much more of a story than Lottie really wanted to ask about at that time.

They began mounting an expedition right then, and Lottie, who wasn’t keen on Spammer and Billy, also wasn’t keen on the weapons discussion and acceptable casualty estimates.

“He’s human and fucking has my brother going to church,” she told them, and Giles went on about how this was just a precautionary and exploratory expedition, no violence planned - 

“So that’s just a precautionary battle-axe?”

Giles had looked down at his suitcase, almost like he was surprised to see it.

“He’s human, eh,” she’d said, not wanting to admit it and not wanting to admit what had almost happened. 

She’d felt his heartbeat, even as she was threatening Billy with dust. _He’s human, he’s human._

It came out, eventually (there was a rumor that Willow had spelled the principal’s suite with some sort of honesty thing, because most of the students had broken down at some point or another) and that’s what seemed to break the spell the faculty was under. The battle axe was replaced by a new set of stakes, and Willow had asked about rings, amulets, charms - 

“So he’s seeing your brother?” Buffy had asked, and other forms of that question, to the point that Lottie felt more like defending her brother than attacking Billy.

“Well, if he’s human, and if you’ve not run across mention of him in your normal line of work,” Giles said, polishing his glasses while trying to ignore Buffy’s questions (“What do you mean it’s pretty obvious he’s been gay for a while?”), then I would assume it’s reasonable to assume that he is indeed William Pratt once more, but reborn to a modern age. Cautious optimism is what I would recommend at this juncture.”

Meanwhile, Spammer had appreciated the effort she was making even if it pissed him off. 

Talk about conflicted loyalties. But Spammer lived to be twisted up, eh, gave him something to write about in Al-Anon. 

He was as pissed at Lottie for not being all open arms as he was understanding that she wasn’t going to be all _hey, whatever_ about this for a while, and he just couldn’t get mad at her, which is what Lottie would do in his place. But then, that was Spammer since they were kids, never a reaction that didn’t have his eyes cutting over to the folks, is this going to awaken the beast. 

She hated it as much as she secretly, deep down, loved him for doing it. Spammer wasn’t going to be the cause of another broken bone, not unless it happened on ice and witnessed and judged. 

So they were a pair. Lottie was a Slayer and a sister and a girl sitting in the shade in Toronto, watching kids toss balls in trees and sometimes having to climb up after them. Spammer was a goon and a psychiatrist and gay for some guy who used to be a vampire and they’d both grown up not saying what was on their minds. He’d called it _conflicting loyalties_ and Lottie had called it _a pain in the fucking ass._ They were both right, eh.

But at the end of the day, she decided, finishing the coffee (she’d only had a couple bites of the cruller - Plimsoll’s had spoiled them all), she and Spammer were, before all else, siblings, and family, and family without thinking about their parents because, no matter what, she could count on Spammer and he could count on her. They’d already had to realize that they were all they had in life, and then they’d had to realize that they’d be adding to that, and that it didn’t have to mean anything bad.

 _Besides,_ she thought, getting out a stake and quickly throwing it up in the trees, _those other loyalties had their uses._ She got up and walked over to where the stake had landed, wiped the dust off it, and put it away.

Time to go back to sleep until the evening, when she could go to work.


	8. Inconsiderate

Class was starting in three weeks, but preparations had already been made, knowing what would happen.

If Plimsoll’s was going to be closed for August, Baron Churchill would leave town.

The pack had found some acreage up north and had taken out a rather large mortgage to purchase it. It wasn’t on the Madawaska but the land between their border and the river had been encouraged to remain wild. Baron didn’t necessarily approve of encouragement but, then, he didn’t disapprove of extending his authority, so it all worked out.

They’d built some on the land - part of the mortgage was a homestead claim that required some improvement, but no one said it had to be extensive. As it was, there was a cabin and they’d hooked into the water lines that had been laid out ahead of a hotel that never came to be. It wasn’t encouragement that got them the water, just theft that Baron felt was justified because his wife enjoyed a tub bath.

Baron enjoyed a toaster, personally.

There was a gas station ten miles back down the road that also functioned as the general store, and the wife sold homemade bread. Her cinnamon bread was raisiny and fresh, and when you combined it with heat and then applied good butter, the Plimsoll’s problem could be considered contained, if not resolved. 

“Or at least,” Baron said to the man whose head was beneath his foot, “that was the plan.”

The man was trying to apologize but Baron never agreed with cheap words, a point he reiterated as the man’s flailing feet scattered the toast even further than his ill-timed clumsiness had only moments before.

“It was the last loaf,” Baron said, staring out at the landscape with sorrow. “She won’t make any more until tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You don’t live in Toronto,” Baron said. “You don’t realize what this time of the year is like. It’s humid, people are unhappy, and there are no decent baked goods to be found in the city. And then, just as I’m about to have a brief respite from my troubles…”

“Look, I’ll pay, all right?”

“You’re damned right you will.”

“It was a mistake, I - I didn’t mean to hit you. I don’t even usually jog this way,” the man added. His track suit was mud-soaked, his MP3 only barely visible and the earbuds an expensive lost cause.

“Why are you listening to anything but the woods, eh?” Baron asked, looking at the tinny squealers. It sounded like something the kids at school would listen to. 

Baron taught at a middle school.

“You are out in nature, mate,” he said, stepping down a little harder before letting the man back up. “Learn to appreciate it.”

The breeze off the Madawaska picked up, a nice chill to the air.

“You - you’re crazy!” the man said.

“And you broke my plate and destroyed my breakfast,” Baron responded. The man looked around at the scattered loaf. Some of the toast had fallen into the water and was long gone, fish food at some point, perhaps.

Fish, Baron thought.

“You were going to eat all that toast?” the man asked. He carefully picked up his sunglasses and iPod. The earbuds, a loss, he started to throw away.

Baron growled, and the man looked around, his face white where it showed through the mud.

“You probably shouldn’t be jogging here,” Baron said. “It’s not the safest area to litter, either.” 

The man clutched the earbuds and took off.

“‘Nature sharp of tooth and claw,’” Baron said, looking down at the toast that had been ground into the mud by the jogger’s face. He sighed, and started to walk back home.

“There’d better be some bacon,” he said, and by the time he got there, it was halfway to being ready.


	9. Brave

“Five.”

Anchor stopped listening to the trainer as anything besides a marker. The encouragement, the threats, instructions - none of it meant anything and all Anchor did was raise and lower the bar.

“Six.”

It was like skating, or the ballroom dancing his mum made him take as a kid, before he was allowed to join the league (allowed as in Dad sneaking him to practice for the first two weeks until the collision with the pipes made it clear to Mum just what had been happening). The box step:

Smooth up, smooth down, hold for five in between each rise and fall. Up for five, hold for five, down for five, hold for five.

“Seven.”

But this wasn’t dancing, because dancing didn’t call for bravery.

Dancing didn’t involve running for your life.

“Eight.”

Dancing - or hockey, for that matter - didn’t require you to trust your girlfriend could take care of herself and that your job wasn’t to worry about her but to not become a liability to her.

“Nine.”

Half the training at the Watchers’ Academy was How to Not Force Your Slayer Into Saving You. Anchor had thought that was funny. The first time he sparred with Lottie he realized that she could actually kick his ass and that he needed to get better if he was going to support her.

“Ten.”

The other half of the training was instructions on various demons and how to find information on demons and how to kill them. “The Slayer is the brawn, the best you can hope to be is the brain,” he was told.

“Eleven.”

The trick was to betray absolutely no emotion while pressing, just a smooth set with each repetition. One hundred and fifty pounds up, pause, down, pause - Anchor wasn’t setting a record for himself by any means, it was the meditation of it, eh, the endurance: how long could he keep this up?

“Twelve.”

After this set, he’d go into a handstand and do another twenty, down, pause, up, pause. After that, push-ups for twenty, and then repeat the circuit until his arms were burning and the onlookers knew not to give him shit.

“Thirteen.”

Tomorrow he’d do an ironman, at least in terms of numbers, and get in legs and cardio, followed by a day of powerlifting.

“Fourteen.”

And tonight, Anchor would go out with Lottie and watch her take on the undead and the others. Sometimes he’d fight alongside her. Most of the time he stands back, out of the way, checking the horizon for the next bad thing to come towards her.

“Fifteen.”

Some of the vampires would sneer at him. Last night one of them had called him a bellboy, holding her bag. 

“Sixteen.”

He was dead now, so small favor, eh. Lottie had killed him, like she did all the others. Anchor had stood there while she jumped in front of him and grabbed the vamp by his collar and pulled him forward on her stake.

“Seventeen.”

If Anchor had anything to say about it, he would be able to take care of himself.

“Eighteen.”

And some day he would not be scared the entire night.

“Nineteen.”

Some day.

“Twenty.”

He racked the bar and stood up, blowing out his breath. 

He was about to go into the headstand when he was blocked, his trainer right there, in his face. His name was Lee Park and he said he couldn’t get more Korean if he moved to Seoul. Ank worked with him because Lee pushed him in ways goons didn’t, and he studied the way Anchor and other goons pushed themselves so he could work it into the schedule for what he wanted Ank to do, became the anti-goon who didn’t even call him Anchor. He pushed Ank on weights, and taekwondo exercises, but not fighting - “You want to learn that, put in the time, eh. I’m not Miyagi, and you sure as shit ain’t Daniel-san.”

“I don’t know what this is,” Lee said, eyes less than a foot from Ank’s and shifting focus from left to right.

“Just doing a -”

“Yeah, and it’s not what I’m having you do, and if you’re trying to give yourself a heart attack while busting a shoulder, don’t do it during my hour,” Lee said. Anchor just stared him down, or tried to. 

“I’m fine, eh, just going for some endurance -”

Lee put his hand on Ank’s shoulder, pulled him to start walking over to the mirrors by the window. Ank stared at his reflection, and Lee sighed, got out his phone and started looking for pictures.

“This is you now,” he said, gesturing to the mirror, “and this was you when we started.”

Six months earlier, Ank had gladly done the “before” picture for Lee’s before-and-after collection. He looked great, always had, maybe could have been a model if he hadn’t also had ice, and he’d said that there probably wasn’t anything Lee could do to make him look better, _but what the hell, let’s try._

The body looked much the same - okay, a little more definition, but it wasn’t - 

Anchor’s skin looked tighter, not his muscles looking bigger. And his face - eyes staring, staring hard, no smile today, no room for one.

“Right now, you aren’t exactly advertising for my services. Hell, Ackermann, I’m about ready to fire you. I don’t know what you’re afraid of,” Lee added, “but making yourself more killable probably won’t make things better.”

Now he pulled Ank away from the mirror, pushed him to the showers.

“Clean off, then steam for ten. I’ll meet you after that.”

This wasn’t a gym with a whole spa component, but they did have a room with a couple of tables for the physiotherapists, so when Lee led him there, Ank knew the drill.

It was just baby oil, nothing fancy. Ozzer hated baby oil (and baby powder, not that that was important) and used other oils, but before and after Team Canada, baby oil was the smell of massages to Anchor. That was both a comfort and not a comfort. Oz was great at knowing which muscles needed to be relaxed and which ones had to be destroyed, but a little too good at knowing what the problem was, knowing when it wasn’t about overstretching but too much drinking or off-ice fighting, or whatever. 

He didn’t have to worry about Lee figuring this out, he knew, laying down on his belly, his head inside the donut. Lee squirted baby oil on his hands and rubbed them together, then lightly ran his hands down Anchor’s body, shoulders to hands back to shoulders and back and hips and ass and thighs and calves and toes, and back up, one hand on the neck and the other at the base of the spine, standing there, silent, before moving both hands to the spine, to the chest.

“Breathe in,” he murmured and Anchor did, and then out, as directed. It happened over and over, and he recognized the pattern: in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. By the time he recognized it he’d lost count, but wouldn’t have been surprised if Lee had him do twenty. Or at least try to, he thought, as he started to relax, almost against his will, and drifted, breathing and feeling his muscles loosen under Lee’s hands, loosen and relax, the warm glide of the oil-slicked hands, the quiet of the room, the only sound Lee’s hand and Lee’s breath.

He drifted back in and turned over as requested, bemused at how easy this felt, and Lee told him to breathe, oiling up his hands again and starting on his chest. By the time Lee was pulling at his toes and relaxing each foot with a warm stretch, Anchor’s head was clear.

He couldn’t protect Lottie if he killed himself by whittling away all his reserves, and he couldn’t protect Lottie anyway, because she was stronger than he was and still more than likely to get killed on the job.

It might be wise, he thought, to listen to the guy he was paying to train his body into being at the peak of fitness, because he’d apparently taken a detour on the way to the peak.

“Eat salmon tonight,” Lee said softly, “or else peanut butter toast, and have salmon tomorrow. Take ten minutes off your cardio and ten pounds off every weight group, and three less reps per round. You got that?”

Anchor nodded, not ready to talk. Lee put his hand on Ank’s forehead, warm hand, familiar scent.

“Whatever fight is coming up, I’ll get you in shape for it. You just gotta do what I tell you.”

Anchor didn’t answer, but he didn’t argue either, and Lee removed his hands and put a sheet over Anchor to keep in the heat, and then left.


	10. Passive-Aggressive

Reverend Aurelia Fairchild (Saint Ambrose, Toronto) briefly debated before deciding against stopping for pastries. It was summer, and therefore this did not replicate any sort of Lenten obligation, but she felt almost obliged to refrain from baked goods during August, when Glenn Plimsoll took his family to Death Valley for a vacation. 

Those who were not privy to the Plimsolls’ actual life might not understand why they headed there at that time of year, but Aurelia always enjoyed pulling up their Facebook page and seeing them curled over and around the rocks. Hetty’s orange scales almost glowed, while the mottled greens that Glenn and his daughter Natalie shared were lustrous and rich, the palette out of place in the desert, perhaps, but still quite beautiful.

Sighing, she continued on to Saint Ambrose. She had a meeting in one hour with Samuel Baxter, one of the new Watchers. The violent dissolution of the Council was tragic, certainly, and the destruction of their libraries, archives and museums were crimes against humanity, so Aurelia had rejoiced, as had all of the Scattergood Covenant, to hear that they would indeed rise, as the phoenix, and begin again.

However, Aurelia could not shake the idea that they’d gathered their tattered membership, poured the tea, and considered the first order of business to decide on a parliamentarian and a groundskeeping committee.

The relationship between the Council and the Covenant dated to 1915, when Joseph Smythe and Dolly Scattergood first confessed their love for each other and then haltingly tried to make it plain (without actually giving away any confidences) to one another that love would require sacrifices that others might not ask, to whit:  
Joseph Smythe belonged to an organization...

Dolly Scattergood belonged to a family...

...which sought to watch and guide a young woman to kill vampires and other demons.

...which sought to kill a vampire that had killed their grandfather.

 _Hold on, what?_ One could imagine Dolly and Joseph saying, perhaps at the same time. 

What ensued was a meeting of representatives to hammer out an accord both Watchers and Scattergoods could abide by, and perhaps each contingent could grow and gain strength from their mutual desire to rid the world of certain terrors.

But no.

What the Council of Watchers requested was that there be no interference or contact with the Slayer.

From time to time the council would ask the Scattergoods to disclose the locations of their brethren in, say, Europe (“Particularly the Baltic region,”) or perhaps South America (“With regards to your good people in Patagonia, would it be inconvenient to for them to remain in that vicinity without leaving - certainly without traveling north - for the next six months to one year?”), without offering any information they might have regarding Sweet William. This, despite requesting copies of all histories the Covenant had collected on the subject. True, the Council had allowed the Covenant’s appointed scholars (no more than three were permitted) to review all records of the fiend that were in their library, but with the exception of Joseph and Dolly Smythe’s bliss and issue, the confraternity of Watchers and Scattergoods was not seen as harmonious.

From 1920, the first year of the revisited contract, the Scattergoods had begun to refer to the Council as a pushmi-pullyu, and they’d never seen a reason to withdraw the term. 

Aurelia’s meeting with Samuel had been known for six weeks, during which time the covenant had issued a memorandum of matters that were up for discussion as well as a list of items that were not.

The supposed prior history of William Pratt was on the second list, while the rise of the Slayers was on the first.

“We must assume,” Aurelia’s uncle Donald said, “that the Council has similar lists with contradictory viewpoints.”

The discussion to take place was of course being treated by both sides as a casual meeting of old friends with no long-term repercussions whatsoever, and no one believed that in the slightest.

Still, it was a pity Aurelia could not take Sam to Plimsoll’s, she thought. Nothing like a good tea cookie to sweeten a meeting.

Or perhaps not, she thought upon seeing her old friend get out of his car and come up the rectory steps.

“My goodness, Sam, what’s become of you?” Aurelia asked as she almost flew out of the door. It wasn’t a polite question most of the time but Sam treated it as such, his grin large and strikingly white in his tan face.

“I’m eating Paleo and doing CrossFit in Los Angeles,” Sam said. He was down two stone at the least, not an ounce of fat to be seen.

“You’re a billboard for all three,” she said, and gave him a hug. “Careful, mustn’t let the neighbors think I’m having an affair - although I shouldn’t think they’d blame me,” she added, and Sam laughed.

“How’s Bob?” 

“Quite well,” she answered, leading him inside and shutting the door. “When he comes home we’ll go out to dinner - you can stay, can’t you?”

“Rather depends on how you and I get on this afternoon,” he said, and she clucked in response, telling him to make himself comfortable and feel free to ignore the shortbread she’d set down with the tea.

Sam was the nephew of a Watcher, a long line of what had been called “ladder families” in the Watcher circles. A man or woman would be trained as a watcher, with a sibling expected to produce issue with one child to be a watcher and another to produce issue… it sounded cockeyed and was hell on the genealogists but it did seem to produce strong ties with less chance of intergenerational tragedy. 

At any rate, Sam and Aurelia had been in the same coven in college and had remained in loose contact (Christmas cards, mostly) through the years. If their meeting was a success, there might not be another for five years.

No one expected it to be a success, though, as these meetings never were, and Aurelia was certain Sam felt the same ending would happen: a broken friendship sacrificed to stiff-necked opponents who were joined on their own ladder.

She took her folder off her desk and went to join Sam on the couch and was about to ask him how he wanted to approach this when he put down one photograph on the coffee table.

Blast.

“This is quite interesting, Aurelia,” he said. “The Council should be quite interested in any statement you should wish to make. Unless, of course, the Scattergood Covenant knows of this development.”

While one couldn’t call Christmas card friends to be durable bonds, it was hoped that - no, Aurelia reminded herself, this quinquennial charade of the Watchers’ Council rather depended on such fragile bonds. Rather like how a vampire expects old friends to welcome them inside.

She took in a breath and let out a blessing.

“At this time, the Scattergood Covenant calls this development evidence of a miracle, Sam,” she said, picking up the picture. At her touch, she saw the image turn watery, impermanent, but it was clear enough to show William working with Bob on the flowerbeds. “It would be hard to preach the parable of the Prodigal Son and then turn away the penitent soul.”

Sam stared at her.

“So you know who he is.”

“Don’t be an ass. Of all the faces in the world, do you think this one would escape my attention?”

“No,” he said, “I mean - you all know who he is.”

“Why would I keep him a secret? You’re hardly the only ones who can scry,” she said, giving him a stare. He reddened, but he hadn’t been able to keep the source of the image from her touch. “And why bring me a glamoured picture? And bring it here, of all places, Sam? We sat side by side learning to dispel illusion. You surely couldn’t mean it get past me in my home.”

“You went from the coven to the ministry, Aurelia,” he said. “There are those who would say you cannot combine these disciplines.”

“And again I say, don’t be an ass.”

“We’re getting off track,” Sam said, and well, that was certainly true. “The point is, Spike is in Toronto, and you did not report this to the Council.”

“The counterpoint is, why should we tell you of the movements of a human named William Pratt?”

“Oh, now really! You are splitting that hair finely, Aurelia!”

“The agreement of 1915 was regarding an exchange of information concerning the Fiend Known as Spike the Bloody,” Aurelia said, tabling for the moment the paucity of information flowing to the Covenant over the last century considering the flow of outright orders, as if the Scattergoods were a subordinate member of the Council’s armies - 

“And as William Pratt is no fiend,” she said, covering both his further arguments and her own, “the Covenant has decided to postpone discussion on this matter while we ponder it further.”

“Oh, so you were going to bring it up in another five years?” Sam asked, scoffing.

“When we postpone discussion, Sam, we postpone all discussion.”

Just as the Watchers’ Council had more than once proclaimed a period of reflection that would be swept away at a moment’s notice, and that was no secret. What was secret, perhaps, was just how much information the three scholars had collected in 1915, but that was certainly not going to be brought up this afternoon.

Aurelia took the silent pause as a good moment to pour the tea, and Sam nodded his thanks and sat back with his cup and saucer.

“Tell me, Aurelia, what was the Covenant’s response to the news of Spike’s death?”

“Which time? In Sunnydale or Los Angeles?”

“Now who’s being an ass?” Sam asked, but one side of his mouth curled up at the question.

“Our position was to postpone discussion for five years,” she said, and as he raised an eyebrow in an a-ha! she went on, “with the idea that as our Covenant had been what shaped us for so long, we were uncertain how to proceed, or if indeed we should proceed. But upon my extraordinary news, discussion was still postponed as to our Covenant, but talks were held on the subject of William Pratt.”

“Ah,” he said, holding up a finger, “that brings up a point the Council wishes to discuss, and that was the continuing mission of the Covenant, so let’s return to that at some point, shall we?”

_Oh, by all means, Sam, let’s return to the subject I’ve said will not be discussed among my people when it’s quite plain you’re hoping we’ll join the Watchers as some sort of -_

Blimey.

“What?” Sam asked, and apparently her expression said all she’d thought and more. Or at least hinted, as he was asking and not simply responding.

“Nothing, Sam,” she said.

“Oh, no, it’s something, Aurelia,” he said. “Here now, say Spike is human again, and say he’s off the table,” he added, waving at the air as if deleting the conversation. “The Scattergood Covenant is a powerful force, and your particular fiend might be vanquished, but there’s rather a lot of evil left in the universe. You have to know that the Council would be honored to have you with us.”

Aurelia’s rectory office would not be the first place that Dolly Scattergood’s romantic inclinations were cursed, but Aurelia did try to limit her words to that effect.

“As I’ve already told you we’ve postponed internal discussion on the subject, you might tell the Council that waiting at the very least until the next quinquennial would be a wise move,” Aurelia said. 

“Well, I certainly will, though I’d be happy to either tell them that or tell them we’ve stopped talking about Spike.”

Aurelia turned to look Sam fully in the face. “And to think your uncle was a member of the Order of the Garter,” she said. “Is it truly the Council’s desire to hector the Covenant upon the subject of William Pratt unless we do agree to join forces?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re joining forces,” Sam said. “After all, it might interest you to know there is more than one slayer at this time.”

As a conversational feint, this one was a surprise. As a misdirection, it was quite good. Did Sam - or rather, did the Council - honestly believe the rise of the Slayers was unknown? William was bloody well living with the brother of the Toronto Slayer.

Then again, it could be that the Council did not realize this was generally known, and had not wished to tip their hand to the Covenant as it would have meant the displacement of almost every last Scattergood.

“I’ve heard that from time to time, there has been more than one awoken - a slayer comes back to life, say, but the potential has already been unleashed from the next.”

“Yes, but - well, let’s just say there would be quite a few Scattergoods being told to move, if we’d wanted to announce this,” Sam said, grinning, and he was the young man she’d first met - no, he was an eight year old, with a secret frog in his pocket.

“Sam,” she said, as a teacher might say to such a mischievous eight year old, “do you mean to say that the Council has broken its agreement with the Covenant?” 

It had been the only point of agreement, and the Scattergoods had always believed the Council had mishandled it, but they’d agreed to not operate in the same territory as a Slayer. Sam’s face, as he considered what he’d said and what she’d asked…

“Shortbread?” Aurelia offered, and had one herself. 

After all, she decided, a pushmi-pullyu _did_ have two heads.


	11. Capable

Renee opened all the windows and started the fan: there would be circulation and there would be, at some point, cool air. At least, there would be if the heat broke. But even if it didn’t, new air was always fresher. 

Renee believed in a spring and a fall cleaning, but she tended to do most of the fall cleaning now, in August. There was much to be said about cleaning before the school year started, because the weather wasn’t likely to get cooler before mid-September, and by then she’d prefer to spend her weekends doing something besides moving the couches to steam clean the carpet. Come fall proper, Renee would go through her clothes and pack away the summer wear and bring out the sweaters and thick socks, the scent of rosemary and lavender sachets making it a more pleasant activity than some would guess.

She’d already made Michel three pair of socks, two heavy and one light (to wear with suits), a toque, and a scarf, and was halfway through the Nordic crewneck. She’d make him a cardigan, too, but to Renee’s way of thinking (and her mother’s, and both her grandmothers’), you make a man a good crewneck with some colorwork, and he’ll feel put upon until the first day of real winter, at which time he’ll thank you and thank you and thank you.

Then you make the cardigan, which he’ll look forward to, because he’ll think that’s the better way to go, but he won’t realize its utility until the snow goes away, and then he’ll wear it at night until summer. And once fall rolls around, you’ll pull it out of storage and he’ll smile.

Her husband had only been so thankful and no more. But Saskatoon was south of Inuvik and he hadn’t realized the gift she was giving him. Then again, Renee could have done a better job reading him, she had to admit.

But Michel was still surprised by the chill of winter in Canada, so he’d most likely be more thankful. She’d gone with a simple pattern, two blues, one light and one dark, on a good cream-colored wool that would keep out the wind off the lake. 

She was cleaning upstairs when the door opened.

“Don’t know as you’ll congratulate me,” Michel called out, “but I’m the new head of the committee.”

“Better you than that candy-ass Campbell,” she called back as she stood up. She’d done a good job cleaning the floor - you couldn’t tell that Oz had once made this place into a dingy studio. Now it was bright and the floor glowed - well, it would glow, once she laid down some wax and got a buffer - but at any rate, it was a perfect space now for a craft room. She came down the stairs ready for a shower but full of pride.

Michel stood in the living room, looking pensive.

“Michel?” 

He turned.

“Do you know what that blighter brought? Croissants from Canadian Tire,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s a celebration or a bereavement, but either way I believe I deserve good bread and a cake.”

He sounded so mournful (after first being disdainful, not that she couldn’t understand that) that Renee patted his arm.

“Only another two weeks, love,” she said. “Plimsoll’s will be back soon.”

“You can’t spoil a man and then cut him off,” he said. Renee nodded.

“If it helps any,” she said, “I’m about to shower.”

She climbed the stairs again, intent upon the big shower and the big bath, and Michel took no time at all to decide to follow her. 

Even before winter arrived, Renee knew what to do with a man.


	12. Ambitious

What Spammer is determined not to do is screw up.

He recognizes this as a character trait borne of experience in a household where getting any attention is bad and getting attention for doing the wrong thing is worse. It’s probably why he went to hockey rather than something like boxing: between the helmet and the uniforms and the four others looking exactly like each other, it was harder to stand out. 

Until he made his first goal, and then there was attention and it was good. 

Hockey was a new set of rules about screwing up: if screwing up benefited the team, it was okay. Going to the box got just as many cheers (or at least the anger was directed at the ref) as getting a goal, both from the fans and the team. Spammer’s father even boasted about his penalty minutes.

Spammer’s father called it the “sin bin.”

The rest of life wasn’t so forgiving of errors. Top grades were lowered when you didn’t study enough. Jobs expected you to show up and to stay until the place was clean even if you had three hours of homework and thirty minutes of lats. Spammer had had and lost a few girlfriends in high school because he didn’t call and he didn’t make sure to sit next to them at lunch or in study hall, where there wasn’t assigned seating. And he’d watched his friends screw up, too - talking to other girls too long, or hell, sleeping around, in Anchor’s case. That guy had so many puck bunnies.

And with all of that, there were consequences to screwing up that far outweighed a two minutes minor. Sometimes they were life lessons, sometimes Spammer’s dad added a penalty all his own.

Michel had been great at helping Spammer separate appropriate from inappropriate when it came to screwing up. Maybe your friends yelled at you, most likely they didn’t. Depended on the offense. It was rarely bad, eh. 

“For it to be bad, mate, you’d have to do something bad,” Michel said. “Ten commandments style of bad, like stealing from your friends, or sleeping around.”

“Or killing someone?” Spammer asked, just to take the piss and sure enough Michel’s eyes rolled.

“Case by case basis,” he said.

Girls were harder - more like his dad, eh - which was just fucking weird. Because sometimes you screwed up, and sometimes they were just screwed up. As a rule, the women in Al-Anon said, you shouldn’t have to call someone every few hours. If they wanted more than that, it might be neediness on their part and not you being a heartless bastard.

Although a call out of the blue is nice, apparently.

All of this went out the window with Billy, in part because he was male and in part because he was someone Spammer had come to know so gradually that it wasn’t for a long time that he was able to admit what was going on. 

Also, Spammer found himself calling and texting Billy a lot more than he’d ever called girls in high school.

“I believe that is what God would call a sign, pet,” Billy said, but he was only partly joking, and mostly he looked pretty happy with the situation.

Still, when he realized his phone, which he’d been using to record his talk (“Inheritable Conditions and Family Secrets: Cooperation and the Treatment of Schizophrenia”) had died and he’d lent his charger to someone who was out sick, he’d sent an email that in retrospect was frantic and apologetic, and Billy’s reply was puzzled: _not certain I should forgive you, Carl, I rather think I should wait until you do something wrong. Perhaps you could wait five minutes?_

After he found a charger, he sat and wrote some quick notes then called Michel.

“As long as this isn’t about school you have my ear,” Michel said. He was in the car, but apparently there was a park coming up, so he pulled over and took a walk. He listened to Spammer.

“What’s your fear?” he asked.

“I don’t want to screw this up,” Spammer said.

“What would happen if you did?”

“He’d leave.”

“You think he’d leave if your phone dies?” Michel asked, and okay, that did sound stupid.

“I think if I make a habit of being out of touch, maybe,” Spammer replied, because he wasn’t going to let go of it too soon.

“You’ve a job where he knows he can’t get in contact with you most of the day, unless it’s an emergency,” Michel replied. “And he’s yet to call in an emergency over hair products or spray starch.”

“See, I get that it’s irrational,” Spammer said and Michel interrupted to say that until Spammer said something like that, how was a body to know?

“You realize I also fear that he’s going to leave me because I’m screwed up.”

“It’s the human condition, Spammer,” Michel said. “If you think Billy’s some paragon of virtue without faults then you’ve got a big surprise ahead of you.”

“You think I haven’t noticed he’s OCD and turns queeny in front of people?” Spammer asked.

“Oh, is that an act? I thought it was his personality.”

Spammer paused.

“Yeah, well, there’s that,” he said. 

“And if you think it’s different now that you’re living together, I should tell you that you’re right. It is. You’ve got to be twice as nice and twice as forgiving and half as worried and you should keep your eyes open.”

“Well, now I feel better,” Spammer said, and wound up the phone call so he could get back to work.

When he got home, the house was quiet but there were candles on the dining room table.

He called out Billy’s name and put down his keys. He kept the flowers he’d brought with him. 

“In here,” Billy called, and Spammer went to the bedroom.

“Sorry, pet, just out of the shower,” Billy called from the bathroom. “Beastly long day and I took the bus home. Did you know the TTC creates humidity? That’s how the city gets so damp, they carry it around on the buses and streetcars.”

“Yeah, that’s apparently a feature, not a bug,” Spammer said, leaning on the bedroom door. He was going to go for a casual approach of _oh, the flowers? Yeah, I saw them, impulse purchase eh,_ while hoping Billy would come out naked instead of his robe. Considering it wasn’t all that cool inside, Spammer thought he had a good chance.

He was wrong but Billy had done up his eyes so Spammer barely noticed. He also barely held on to the flowers.

“Are those for me, Carl?” Billy purred and goddamn but Spammer had no defense against mascara and eyeliner. Even in a bathrobe, Billy could make Spammer come undone, but the makeup… goddamn.

“Yeah, baby,” Spammer said, trying to maintain some semblance of control. And calling Billy baby or acknowledging how much the queen routine got him going was control, Spammer was fairly certain of it.

“You should put them in water. You’re home sooner than I expected. Why don’t you go take care of them and I’ll finish getting dressed,” Billy said, looking up with his head down.

“Yeah, baby,” Spammer said, and maybe he wasn’t in control. He turned around and went to the kitchen for a vase that he stuck on the dining room table.

_God help me if he’s got lipstick,_ he thought - _Oh Christ, what if he does?_

He then returned to the bedroom, and was in the bathroom pulling Billy away from the mirror before he could add lip gloss.

“You - this should be - no, it is, it is wrong,” Spammer said, tasting the lipstick that was smeared all down Billy’s mouth and neck. 

“Bit late for you to turn Anabaptist, Carl,” Billy said, still so fucking calm even though he was gripping tight to Spammer’s shirt and working more of that whorish red into Spammer’s stubble. “Trying to tell me I can’t wear a bit of color?”

“Such a fucking wrong thing,” Spammer said, so fucking hard. 

“Is it that hard to enjoy a kink, Carl?” Billy asked, laughing a little and really emphasizing the _k_ sounds, _k_ in _k_ , _C_ arl as he bit Spammer’s ear before licking it.

“Really hard, baby,” he said, turning them both so he could push Billy towards the bed and tug the belt loose, pulling the robe off behind and -

Oh.

“You -”

Billy stood still. Not stiffly, not uncomfortable, just still.

“You -”

“See something you like, pet?”

It was a skirt. Or it would have been had there been enough fabric. Well, there’s a lot of fabric in a ruffle, he thought, amending it to it would have been a skirt had it been long enough.

Some sort of shimmery lace, black, with a ruffle on it, and it should have looked ridiculous, monstrously stupid, but it didn’t. It looked… 

Jesus.

Billy turned his head, the less smeared side in profile, eyes down and mascara -

He took two more steps towards the bed and then crawled across the top, long strides to the crawl that emphasized his legs and lace-covered hips without anything underneath.

His goal, apparently, was the nightstand drawer with the lube, and then he turned over, resting on his elbows with one knee up.

“Bit warm for a coat and tie, Carl,” he said.

Oh, right. Spammer could get undressed himself, and he did, trying to pull himself together enough so that he didn’t just come all over himself taking his pants off.

“I need to tell you that I love you,” he said, once he had his shirt off and his shoes off, socks refusing to move, “but I’m pretty much going to treat you like a sex object for a little while. A very little while, I’m thinking,” he added.

Billy grinned, stretched his leg back out, making it more obvious that the skirt was being held up by his dick. He rubbed the side of his hip, his eyes rolling up.

“Not surprising, pet, wait until you feel this against your skin.”

“Nice, is it?”

“Mmm,” Billy said. “It’s a combination of scratchy and silky. It’s satin and lace. A bit like being whipped by a naughty angel.”

Why is this not a turn-off, he wondered.

“Why is this not a turn-off?” he went ahead and asked, grabbing at the base of his cock to hold off coming. Christ, it worked, maybe a little too well.

“I shall take that as both a rhetorical question and a compliment.”

He could take it however the fuck he wanted, Spammer thought, and dove onto the bed. For a minute he just kissed Billy, holding his face in place, hard enough to bruise, eh, but somehow he thought Billy wouldn’t mind, especially since he was groaning, his knees and hips both curling up, and Spammer pulled one hand down to slide down that hairless chest, skipping the nipples in his haste to get to that fucking skirt, silky and scratchy, just like he’d said.

“Pet!” Billy said, gasping, as Spammer grabbed his dick through the skirt, silky and scratchy, the heat coming through and Spammer edged down, kissing, licking, biting, until he could nuzzle the skirt. He was still holding onto Billy’s dick, ignoring the hand batting at his head until he grabbed it with his left hand and looked up into Billy’s eyes, licking at the palm and burrowing his tongue between the middle and ring finger, Billy’s eyes open wide, no more attitude, just want and desire in mascara and liner.

“Purple liner,” he said, and Billy smiled briefly, _yeah, that’s right, pet, very good,_ before going back to an open mouth and closed eyes.

“Next time you wear this you’re going to suck me off,” Spammer said, and Billy’s cock jumped in his hand. He started licking at Billy’s scrotum, sucking the raphe while lightly jacking through the skirt. His own dick was hoping for a little action and yeah, it wasn’t going to last that much longer, to be honest. 

But Billy was getting close to coming, too, and as much as Spammer wanted to jack him with that skirt he decided that could wait, and flipped the skirt up, taking that beautiful cock in his mouth, Billy grunting and pushing up with his hips. Spammer held onto his hips, silky and scratchy and sucked, waiting -

Billy tugged his head, pulling on his hair even as he came and if Spammer went bald he was going to tell people how it happened, and he’d tell them about the skirt and the lipstick.

Swallowing, he looked up and Billy looked at him, hand out, come up here but Billy shook his head.

“Sex object, eh,” he said, and licked his lips. He looked down and kissed the base of Billy’s dick, and Billy fucking whimpered. 

“Hold your legs up, Billy,” he said, and oh, what a pretty picture, the black skirt framing above and below, Spammer’s hand still holding on. He nestled beneath and licked at Billy’s ass, running his tongue down the raphe to the perineum to the anus and back up, back down and back up before wrapping an arm around Billy’s hips to hold them up and stable. Only then did he get serious, tongue fucking his boyfriend open, all the while listening to the sounds Billy probably wasn’t even aware he was making and Spammer would be certain to repeat them back to him later.

He took a break, kissing one trembling thigh and looking up again.

Spammer didn’t recall ever seeing porn that was half so hot as Billy with his lipstick and running mascara.

“So fucking beautiful,” he said, and Billy reached out with a hand, running it down Spammer’s face and Spammer licked the palm.

“You - you are taking a break, right, pet?” he asked. “Not stopping, I mean?”

_You’re kidding, right?_ Spammer wanted to ask, his dick hard enough to drill through concrete.

“Next time, you’re going to suck me off but I’m getting you a plug,” he said, and yes that seemed to get Billy going again.

He reached for the lube, letting Billy lower his legs and moving back up so they could make out some while he opened Billy some more with his fingers. It wouldn’t take much to prep him, but it felt so good to drive in slick fingers, scissor and explore, feeling Billy twitch and shake and relax.

“Still just a sex object?” Billy asked, and Spammer nodded. “Right then. Next time I shall endeavor to bring my lipstick to bed with me so I can refresh it.”

“Not needed,” Spammer said. “You look perfect.”

“Such a flatterer,” Billy said, and sucked in his breath before letting out a high-pitched whine.

“Turn over,” Spammer said, because his dick was ready to go off just on that whine and it had been really patient for the last ten minutes (if it had been that long - it would have to be, Billy wasn’t a teen, he needed at least ten minutes to reload, eh, but then, had it been that long? It didn’t feel like it.)

Now he had the same view he’d had when Billy crawled onto the bed, and it was still a nice view, even better now, actually, the shine of the lube around Billy’s asshole, and seriously, that was all Spammer needed to groan and grab hold, sinking deep into Billy’s ass, silky and scratchy under his hands and velvet around his dick. 

Billy groaned as well, and his arms seemed to lose all strength. His rump stayed raised and that’s all Spammer required of his sex object boyfriend, that and the skirt. He reached around to hold onto Billy’s cock, again hard and again he gripped it through the materials, a shout his reward.

He tried to time it but then he doubled down on Billy, because he wasn’t going to be good for anything after coming and Billy didn’t deserve to be left hanging, not when he was all beautiful and shiny, scratchy and silky, because Spammer was determined not to screw this up, not in the long term or the short term.

Billy came with a groan, a warm spurt into the satin and lace, and Spammer hunched over his back, kissing him while holding tight to his hips and short hard strokes pounding in before coming himself, so fucking sweet to feel, not used to it without condoms yet, even though it had been months, nothing like this, nothing like this…

He didn’t even pull out, just pulled them both over on their sides, his arm under Billy’s chest to pull him up and back into his own chest.

And then, being men (even if one of them was wearing a semen-spattered skirt and mascara and smeared lipstick), they fell asleep for a little while.

At some point Billy made a rumbling noise that Spammer recognized and he loosened his hold as Billy moved away, Spammer’s dick pulling out finally. Spammer rolled onto his back while Billy went to clean up some. Spammer should have helped out, but what’s the point of a sex object if you have to be courteous, right?

He smiled at that, knowing Billy would just roll his eyes at the thought.

When Billy came back out, his face was cleaned off, and Spammer told himself that was okay, even though it wasn’t. He draped himself over Spammer.

“Next time you treat me like a sex object, you’re wearing a condom,” he said, and Spammer laughed.

“Nope,” he said. “Already told you, next time I’m putting a plug in you.”

“Christ, pet, it hurts to get hard,” Billy said with a groan, and Spammer pulled him close for a kiss.

Later they went out to the kitchen to prepare dinner but Billy declared it too much work and Spammer made sandwiches during which time Billy called him useless while putting the flowers in the water-filled vase he’d stuck on the table, and then they went back into the bedroom.

No matter what, Spammer told himself again, he was not going to screw this up. He’d screw up, sure, human nature, but he would do everything in his power to keep the man who made him hard with mascara and some lace. 

“Dunno if the skirt will survive the ravishment.”

“It played its part,” Spammer said. He took the plates back into the kitchen and blew out the candles on the dinner table. He had a thought.

“Was this because of my email?” 

Billy, who was always a little slow to think after sex, was sitting up in bed and staring at the television, which wasn’t on. He looked up at Spammer.

“If I say yes, will you come to expect such treatment every time you have some sort of crisis thinking?”

“Yes,” Spammer answered.

“Then yes, it was because of the email,” Billy said, and looked over at the dark television once more.

Spammer picked up the remote and turned it on, giving it to Billy to choose what to watch, because after that sort of promise how could he do anything but?

Didn’t matter if it was lipstick or lace, Spammer was going to keep this going. Or - 

He thought about it for a moment, and didn’t panic. His dick wasn’t into it at the moment, but it was more about calling for a time-out and a line change rather than a major penalty.

“You should probably fuck me one of these days,” he said, pulling Billy to him.

“I think that could be arranged,” Billy said after a moment, still flipping through channels.

“Yeah?” It still felt all right to think about, and he squeezed Billy, kissing the back of his neck.

“Certainly,” he said, settling on Velvet Goldmine (so predictable), which was about halfway through.

“After all, pet,” he added, “they make that skirt in other sizes.”


	13. Efficient

Truly, one had to reimagine proportions when considering hockey players. And not only as regards the players themselves, but their dwellings. 

Michel had known that Renee’s home was a gift from her brother - she’d moved to Toronto after a divorce, somehow managing to wrangle full and complete custody of her sons (Michel pitied the judge and her ex-husband’s attorney), and yet she lived in a Victorian 3-story (detached, no less) on a teacher’s salary. That her brother was _Mark Smithbauer_ made his first visit to her home almost a pilgrimage. But he’d kept most of the worship on the down low, or at least he hoped he’d had, and tried to notice only the feminine touches Renee had added.

These were minimal. Flowers and plants, mostly, with the furniture sturdy and good quality - 

“That’s because I picked it out, eh,” she told him. She’d seen her brother’s condo in Chicago and knew he hadn’t had anything to do with it outside of sleeping there. 

What Michel took away from the anecdote and the surroundings was that Renee wasn’t interested in decor as much as she was interested in a good, comfortable place to be. It was clean and smelled good, but not like potpourri. It wasn’t the home Michel’s ex-wife had wanted, and that’s when Michel realized he had more to learn about women than he’d ever realized.

The women at his home group had laughed long and loud when he said that.

Functional and efficient were Renee’s watchwords, but her face lit up at the earrings he bought her, just some butterflies in silver - she’d kissed him and went to put them on and she liked how they caught the light. He liked how she smiled.

The one renovation she’d made since assuming ownership was the bathroom on the first floor. The tub had already been oversized for her brother’s comfort, but she’d had it fitted with a heater and a custom cover, turning it into a Japanese-style tub with water that was only changed out once a month (“Cuts down on the water bill,” she’d said.) and she’d added a steam unit to the shower.

The steam was fantastic, Michel thought, because it was the best time to cherish his lady’s body. She was always up for a cuddle on the couch but whenever he’d stroke her back she’d ask if he was going to settle down anytime soon. Stroking, to Renee, was for sex. A cuddle was a far more static experience than Michel was familiar with.

But then, Renee in motion usually stayed in motion: cleaning, cooking, exercise or hockey. Once she sat down, she might be grading or working on her finances, or she might be knitting or reading, and then she was mostly still. Even in sleep she would find one position (often draped across Michel, which he did not mind one bit) and stay there all night.

But in the steam she would allow Michel to stroke and scrub to his heart’s content, her body relaxing to such a degree that she’d lean against the wall, offering herself for Michel’s touch. 

And while intercourse itself might not be on the menu (remembering to bring in a condom was always tricky), this left Michel free to pleasure Renee in other manners.  
(Once more he found himself having to stop the comparisons with his ex, even though this one was favorable to Renee.) 

This morning she’d been scrubbing the second story, which was to be her sewing room, apparently. She’d already cleaned from top to toe in preparation for some friends coming for dinner, and she’d already told him she’d started preparing that around three. 

“Ben’s an old friend from Inuvik. Used to be best friends with Mark, now he’s married to a fella he met in Chicago,” she said, and Michel went from wondering if by friend she’d meant he used to be her boyfriend to perhaps her brother’s boyfriend.

After finally rinsing off, they’d often repair to the tub, but in the warm, damp air a bath had seemed superfluous (to say nothing of towels), so they’d wandered downstairs to the bedroom, where Renee called for a pizza before complaining of the heat and flopping down on her side of the bed before coming in close to drape across him.

“Thought it was too hot,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I just, hmm, want to be here,” she said, the telephone call taking it out of her and all of her energy depleted.

Her thigh rubbed against his, stirring his cock. _Hush,_ he told it, because there was very little chance of anything more, especially not until after pizza and a nap. Renee was not one to wallow for ages.

Her hand moved down his chest, and he snorted, catching it for a kiss.

She giggled in response and pulled herself up to kiss him back, the heavy air making this all almost unbearable and wondrous, like making love on velvet, too much but too rare an opportunity to stop.

Until the doorbell rang and she groaned, the sound vibrating around Michel’s cock to the point that he almost came, _Christ,_ what bad timing!

“Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re going to have to go, love,” Michel said, and she looked up from where she was hunched around his hips, her eyes soft and almost sad: _really?_

“Oi! None of that helpless kitten, you - I know you better,” he said, and Renee bit her lip. “And don’t you try that, either,” he added, but he was already getting up and opening the nightstand drawer in which there was always pizza money.

“What’s got into you, anyway?” he asked as he shrugged on a bathrobe and headed down the stairs, calling out that he was on his way as the doorbell rang again. It’s not that he minded, but this wasn’t like Renee, not in the slightest. As he paid the pizza boy (who was smirking, or at least it seemed he was in the way that everyone seemed to be smirking when a man was engaging in amorous endeavors), Michel tried to reconcile this with what he’d already seen in the woman he loved, and -

_Oh, oh, oh._

Michel set the pizza down and went to the kitchen for plates and such, smiling, because he had the feeling Renee was coming to understand that she loved him. It was the only thing that made sense. 

_Well, no sense crowing, me ol’ China,_ he told himself. She’s not one to appreciate it.

When he got back upstairs, the bathroom door was shut. He set out a towel on the top sheet and put the pizza box down on the towel, and took out two beers from her mini-fridge (any woman who keeps beer in her bedroom and keeps pizza money by the bed is a woman to be cherished, and Michel showed his appreciation by following her rules for How to Set the Table in Bed for Pizza). 

He’d just opened his own beer when Renee came out of the bathroom, carrying a small white thing in her hand. She leaned against the doorjamb and looked at Michel, her head tilted to one side.

“I’m not usually so touchy-feely,” she said.

“I know, love,” Michel answered. _Let her make her statement. She knows how you feel already._

“In fact, the only time I can remember acting this way was before the twins were born.”

“Oh?” 

_Bit of a left turn there,_ he thought.

She nodded. “My doctor said some women were like that. Apparently it’s a nesting behavior.”

He looked around. “Seems to me you’ve nested rather successfully.”

“No, that’s not -” she broke off, shaking her head. She looked down at her hand, and so did Michel, and that’s when he made the connection. He looked back up to her face.   
Still seemed like a good idea to let her say her piece.

“I’m pregnant.”

So many thoughts! 

So many chances at a wrong answer!

Michel put the beer down and got up, taking her hand. He looked down, saw the two lines. 

“That’s the positive, right?”

She laughed and then stopped. “Yeah. I - I looked at the instructions again. I didn’t want to read it wrong.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said, and yes, he realized they were both dancing around this but he couldn’t help it. It’s her body, mate, she gets to say what happens next and you get to nod. That’s the script and it’s the only way it can go.

“Anything you’d like to say?” Renee asked, her voice bright and cracking, tense and frightened, which was another thing that didn’t usually define Renee. He held onto her hand and pulled her into a hug. She was just short enough for Michel to look down into her upturned eyes.

“If you want us to be three,” he said, throwing out the script in favor of honesty, “I am willing and possibly able and most likely quite unready.” He felt her body wilt, her eyes welling. Oh thank Christ, he thought but went ahead with the rest of what should be said. “But if this isn’t what you want, well - you have to be the one to decide.”

“I want her - this,” she said, her hand coming up to his face, and she realized she was still holding the - 

“Sorry,” she said, and he laughed and took it out of her hands, thinking this would be the first of many things he’d be doing that with, followed by bottles and blankets and -

“Did you say her?” Michel peered at the two lines. “You can’t tell that yet, can you?”

Renee laughed and reached up to kiss him, and who bloody cared whether the test could show that or whether she’d just performed some little spell to find out or perhaps she’d just wanted a little girl, the important thing was - 

“Bloody hell, love, you’re pregnant!”

“I know, I know,” she said, “it’s totally not what I was planning or, you know, thinking about, or even wanting, eh, I mean, I’m - I’m forty, Michel!”

“But now you want her?”

Renee nodded. “I’m not saying I’m right - and a boy would be great, another goon, but -”

“A baby’s all I’m hoping for,” Michel said and kissed her, thankful for the failure rate of the highest-rated condoms on the market.

It wasn’t the best way to go about pregnancy, but then, Renee had a good track record for making a situation better.

“I love you, you know that, right?” Michel asked. “I haven’t actually - said it, I know, and it’s a silly time to -”

“I know,” she said, and of course she’d know.


	14. Miserly

Renee has always been good with making do. Her mother taught her how to use baking soda and vinegar to clean, and that beating a rug not only cleaned it without using electricity but was a good way to get out excess energy.

She didn’t particularly think any of the boys at school were good candidates for the long term, but her mother encouraged her to go to the dances anyway. “They might surprise you, honey,” she said, putting a kiss on her daughter’s head, “and if they don’t, well, you can at least get some practice in on how to talk to boys.”

Gary had seemed a good candidate for the long haul, and he’d gone to church on Sundays all through college. He wasn’t as affectionate as other boys she’d dated but she put that down to him being a more serious-minded man. Holding hands was fine, but he wouldn’t kiss her in public, not until their wedding, and even then it wasn’t the most romantic kiss she’d ever had. In private, his little touches let her know he wanted sex, and once the sex was over he was just as happy to go back to holding hands, if that.  
Sometime after they’d been married for six months or so, Renee wanted… more. She couldn’t describe it but she held onto Gary after sex, not letting him get away, and at first he’d laughed and kissed her, but after five minutes he’d get up and go to the bathroom and then come back with a glass of water. In the morning she woke up draped across him, and when he woke up he seemed puzzled.

Once she missed her period and confirmed with the doctor, she cautiously asked if there were any behavioral changes she should be on the lookout for, and he looked at her sideways and smiled.

“Are you doing something out of the ordinary and you’re wondering if it’s related?” He asked.

It turned out this wasn’t the most unusual thing, but since they had twins and Gary didn’t think they should have more children, Renee didn’t have the chance to see if that would happen again.

She’d been on the pill but she wasn’t a good candidate for the high dosage, the low dosage, or _any_ dosage, apparently, and so she’d gone with a diaphragm and Gary wore condoms, and while it might not have been the most exciting sex life on the planet she loved him and she loved her kids and it was a good marriage until it wasn’t.

And that’s when Renee discovered she was a little too good at making do. She was glad her mother hadn’t been alive to see the failure, to see how Renee had learned to talk to boys but hadn’t translated that to talking with a husband, and really, that _she_ might need some conversation herself. She might … want more.

Michel liked to touch her, hold onto her, and yet it wasn’t about sex, apparently, even though he was always thrilled to have it, eh, kid in a candy store, he seemed like. She started to realize he just liked _her,_ but no, no, she’d already been down the road of following a man’s lead, so she pushed back on that, stilled his hands when they were watching a movie, and holding hands as they’d walk home. She wasn’t going to make do with what a man wanted, even if it seemed to be what she might want, too. From now on, Renee would make her own decisions.

And Michel seemed to think that was normal, and fine, and even - even back before they started dating, when she’d said she wasn’t interested in a relationship he’d seemed disappointed but he still said hello at the market and still seemed to be genuinely interested in friendship. 

She’d had a reckoning in the form of both her sons telling her she was an idiot to not live her life, but she took it as a sign that the world wanted her to recognize her failures when Michel wasn’t interested in her anymore - but it was a fucking relief when she found out the real story there, and … well, it had been a slow and bumpy road but she had to admit that she was the one throwing up the roadblocks most of the time.

He hadn’t even pressed her on how she knew about Glenn Plimsoll, even though she could see that he wanted to.

Since the divorce - hell, since finding out her brother had seemingly taken in a freeloader, and there was a small part of Renee that still thought Oz had latched on to a good thing - Renee had been used to taking on the world on her own. She’d convinced the judge that sharing custody would _not_ be in the best interest of the twins and then she’d convinced the judge that leaving the province was in _their_ best interest, and she’d gotten them onto good teams (Soo and Kamloops had been in her top five) and into good billets, and once a month she flew out to wherever to see one of them play.

She didn’t deny that Mark, in letting her stay in the Toronto house, had helped a good deal. But aside from that, Renee had done it all on her own. (And who, she’d liked to know, had picked out the furniture for Toronto, oh and who had worked with a realtor to find good turnkeys in Calgary and got Mark and Oz moved in inside a week? Think _Oz_ could have done that?)

Renee was so used to being in motion that taking on two committee assignments in her first year in the Toronto school district didn’t phase her one bit. 

Mark had asked her to consider moving to Calgary, after Justin was bit. That didn’t fit into her plans - not that she had plans about having a werewolf in the family but as soon as she learned what was going on, a part of her began to consider contingencies, but Calgary was not one of them. Instead, she stayed in Toronto, and Oz introduced her to some people, one of whom was another teacher who seemed competent, and that’s who taught her about werewolves.

It was a long time before she realized Oz was a big wheel among wolves, that Baron Churchill (who wasn’t the type to take shit from anybody, and wasn’t in anyone’s pocket) had moved from Ottawa because Oz wanted some wolves in Toronto to protect Justin.

That… that took her down a peg. 

Outside of that, and the house in Toronto, though… Renee had done everything on her own. Granted, the Toronto pack watched Justin during the full moon - but she was out there with him, eh, staying in the bed outside Justin’s room, a room set up just for cubs...

Renee had to come to grips with the fact that no, she hadn’t done everything on her own and it was some hard medicine to take.

And now, as she’s luxuriating in _touch_ and realizing that’s just not like her, most of the time, she’s aware of two things:

One, that if she’s enjoying it, why not try to do it some more, see if it’s all right to touch more; and

Two, since this isn’t her normal behavior and the only time she can remember doing this was - _oh, oh, oh…_

Renee is a modern woman. She’s had a pregnancy test on hand ever since moving to Toronto. She’d really thought it would be used by a young woman while Renee herself was berating Justin or Nolan.

_And now... Three,_ she thinks, staring at the two lines becoming visible, _I want this._

Four, she wants this child and she wants Michel, and she wants to touch him more often, rub his arm, even when the game is on, and she wants things, wants to ask for things, wants -

She hears Michel come back upstairs.

Renee wants pizza. And Michel.

When she comes out of the bathroom, Michel is doing as she’s asked by pulling the duvet down and putting a towel on the sheets and the pizza on the towel. This cuts down on having to wash the duvet and usually cuts down on grease stains on the sheets. He does this like he does everything else that she’s asked him to do - well, almost everything, but he lets her know when something’s against his best interest. 

He’s honest that way. And on the things he will do, he does do. 

_You should marry him,_ she thinks, and this is the moment he looks up at her and smiles.


	15. Strong

Thierry’s done a lot of hard things in his life, but this might just beat them all. 

He squints, holds both his hands close to his face and - 

Damn!

He breaths in and out, rolls his shoulders a time or two, tries again, and - yes!

Thierry has successfully threaded a needle.

Thierry is six-four and until a couple of years ago he was the enforcer for Men’s Team Canada. Before that, he was the enforcer on his his elementary school team, and his secondary school team (until he got the Junior A offer, where he was, surprise, the enforcer), and - well, it’s pretty much been Thierry’s experience that if he gets on the ice, he’s tagged as defense and that’s pretty much it.

He’s got a real job now, construction, and he’s studying to be a masseur. His girlfriend, Katie, is studying to be a doctor at U-Toronto and she says once she goes into practice Thierry can consider his full-time job to be love slave. She’s only partly kidding - he’ll also be taking care of the kids, and that’s a good deal, as far as he’s concerned. 

Back when he started on Men’s Team Canada, his dad had warned him about how the coach was a queer and how Thierry had to make sure he was fully dressed whenever the coach came into the dressing room. Team Canada had had only one season on the ice when Thierry joined, but by then everyone know that Coach Smithbauer was queer and that the team and the CHA had no problems with him.

Thierry’s dad wasn’t too sure about that - “you don’t sign anything until the lawyer looks it over,” he said when he got the acceptance letter and the contract, because chances were good that if you joined the CHA you probably signed away your rights to sue.

“It’s probably okay, Dad,” Thierry said, and his dad rolled his eyes but let it go. Everyone knew that in the Montand family, Thierry was the brains. His little brother was the brawn, and Thierry could not wait for him to be old enough to try out for Men’s Team Canada - Georges would be a shoe-in!

Thierry had the best time those first couple of months, but it almost all went to hell when his family came down to Calgary to see the first game, and Mr. Montand refused to shake Coach’s hand and told him that he’d better not lay a hand on Thierry, either.

All of the sudden Thierry remembered that kid, the queer one in junior high, the one he’d bullied and his dad had been proud. And Coach and Ozzer were, like, the best, eh - the best.

Coach didn’t hold it against him, even went with him to apologize to Eddie for being such an asshole all those years ago.

And Thierry’s dad might not have agreed with him doing that, but his dad always said that you don’t just say sorry, eh, you change your behavior, which was why Thierry joined PFLAG. 

It was weird, but Coach and Ozzer? Weren’t members. 

Anyway, joining PFLAG meant hanging out with some great people, and the CHA people were a little surprised when he said maybe they could do some cross-sponsorship things, which was weird because they’d spent a whole morning telling them about how if you were involved with something that the CHA would love to know about it.  
Thierry picks up the satin panel and starts stitching the line of sequin tape he’s already pinned in place. 

He met a couple guys at PFLAG who were drag queens, and it’s sort of a complicated story, but there was a night out with these guys in which Thierry ended up in a sparkly dress out on the ice doing some pretty bad figure skating.

He’s been having a great time ever since, though. Katie’s been a great help. They officially met at a CHA event, sponsors and the Teams Canada and this five-foot-three player (smallest player on Women’s) planted herself in front of him and told him his death spiral was flawless but he shouldn’t be wearing pink.

“You blush too much,” Katie told him. “Sure, you’re blond, but when you start blushing while wearing pink it just looks like you’re about to stroke out.”

They’ve been together ever since, swear to God she’s amazing.

Thierry picks up the next panel and puts it down, realizing he’s got to thread the needle again. His hands just aren’t made for this.

Years ago, one of the Calgary queens told him this really profound thing: Ginger Rogers did _everything_ Fred Astaire did, except she did it backwards and in high heels. And as soon as Thierry found out who Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire were and watched some movies, he realized just how far he had to go to be any good.

Thierry benched more than any other man on Team Canada, and he’s usually the big man at his gym in Toronto these days. He sees guys start to flex when he comes in, and he grins, _hey,_ which they sometimes take as a greeting and sometimes as a challenge. For his part, he knows he’s strong, right, doesn’t worry about it - compliments the guy who’s got more on the bar than he’s got and points out to the guy with less that he’s still got fifteen or twenty on most guys, shit like that.

No, not shit, honest talk, but still, guys just get so defensive about how much they can press, and it’s stupid because they should try that shit while being a woman, right? Katie has slammed more than one guy’s face into a bar because most guys don’t realize that she’s probably the biggest dog in just about any yard.

And in the gym Thierry works out at, he’s the only one who can do any of this backwards and in high heels.

So, _strong,_ in the gym sense, doesn’t mean a lot to Thierry. He’s spent much of his life on ice, where everyone’s at least got enough stamina and strength to leave the rink after the game under their own power. Hell, Ozzer’s barely taller than Katie (and that’s only when she’s not wearing those CFMPs that get Thierry so worked up) and don’t ever fight him, eh, not if you don’t have time to recuperate.

Finding out what women put up with has been an eye-opener for Thierry, and he’s got new heroes now, eh, talk about _strong._ All you gotta do to get muscles is pump. All you gotta do to get through a day as a woman is be pretty but not slutty but not prudish but not confusing but not too smart but not dumb but not look like you’re paranoid but be aware of everything but - 

_Fuck._

Thierry can skate backwards. Heels take longer to figure out just moving forward in pants, and that’s before he can even try to go in reverse in a tea-length gown (which the queens and Katie start him out on because it’s day wear and they can see his form that way and make sure his legs look okay) which is long before he learns how to do it in a gown or a miniskirt. Hell, figure skating is easier than this shit, and women do this every day. 

The dress Thierry’s working on is for the Toronto Chasse. It’s barely a dress, more like a bathing suit with strips of cloth instead of a skirt. It’s bottle green and once it’s done will have sequins along the emphasis lines to better show off his form in the singles event, but comes with a detachable back panel that he’ll remove for the couples’ event. 

Thierry’s the only straight guy on the team. Most people don’t get why Thierry isn’t gay, considering, and when he tells that that he’s not, and he’s checked, they tend to stare a while and then go away without saying anything else. 

But most guys don’t have a girl like Katie, who climbs him like a fucking tree when he’s wearing makeup. They try to get her away from Thierry, and that’s always a mistake, eh. When they try shit in front of Thierry, they usually wind up with a black eye or loose teeth, courtesy of the five-foot-nothing girl with blood on her engagement ring. 

The ones who later admit to Thierry that they tried to make a move get a chuckle as he says, “You couldn’t handle her. Especially not with _that_ ass,” he adds, giving them a little pat as he walks by. 

Because strong now means more than just pumping iron or tossing goons out of the way. _Strong_ means backwards (in heels or figure skates), _strong_ means …

_Strong_ means being able to take what Katie gives him, fingers gripping the blankets, pegged on a toy she sent him to buy. Not that he’s going to just come out and say this, not unless he’s drunk (so it’s happened a time or two), and Thierry’s the strongest man around, he knows this now, strong and happy, whether he’s treating Katie like a china doll or a rag doll, or picking out something lacy for her at one store, and (something lacy for him at another).

And strong, Thierry thinks, holding up the bodice to inspect the lines, means being able to take care of yourself, whether it’s on the ice or in the sewing room.


	16. Warm

The conference ended at four p.m., following a final talk (Sergeant James Talbert, Vancouver: “Maintaining Whose Rights?”) and the last hurried instructions of the conference chair to make certain people received their certifications for continuing developmental training courses, as well as parking validations and airport shuttle information. Ray and I would be leaving the next morning, as we’d planned on having dinner that night with Renee Kober _née_ Smithbauer. 

Our hotel was eight blocks from the conference, which would normally be a very pleasant walk, but the hot, damp air rather lessened the enjoyment for me. I chided myself for not appreciating the different biome and looked around for something that I would not see in Nupiak.

That was a problem, as I rarely saw litter in Nupiak, and so the piece of paper and the chocolate bar wrapper did not seem to me to be signs of the environment but rather signs that the environment was ill-used by its denizens.

I picked them up and disposed of them properly, and by and large reached the hotel without having touched too many objects that might contain germs that could be transmitted to Gracie.

“I’ve been picking up trash,” I announced, holding my hands up as if prepared for surgery, and going directly to the bathroom. 

As I washed up, I looked out to the bed, where Ray and Gracie were both shirtless. Grace was babbling to a toy, and Ray was reading. He smiled up at me when he saw me looking at him.

“Are you good for another year?”

“For another quarter, I should think. And I shouldn’t have to come to this one next year, not unless Sergeant Baine’s wife is pregnant again.”

“Christ, tell me that five kids is enough for those two,” Ray said. Indeed. We were alternately shocked and envious of their family. It isn’t that we didn’t want more children; it was more that we could not understand how anyone survived having more than one child.

“Her rash is gone?” I asked. Gracie wore only a diaper and her skin was back to normal. Perhaps it was not a life-threatening rash, but we both believed that preventative care was best with Gracie, and so Ray had taken her to the pediatric ER that Toronto offered.

“All better, and you know what?” Ray asked, putting his book down and sitting up, animated.

Ray told me a tale that was almost impossible to believe while I took off my uniform, relieved to be out of the heat. But never mind that it was Spammer who’d seen to her, Gracie’s skin was unblemished and she looked happy. Her lot in life might not be heaven sent, but she would at least know that her fathers doted on her.

“So Spammer’s a pediatrician now?” I asked, coming back out in my undershirt and pants. Ray’s eyes stared at the perspiration line down the center of my shirt, but I raised an eyebrow. We’d promised that while Gracie would certainly see that her parents were affectionate with her and each other, she would not be witness to more carnal acts. Ray’s immediate switch to a look of perplexed innocence cut no ice with me, and I turned towards the dresser and put on a t-shirt, pulling out one for him as well. After all, I was only a man with the same appetites as any other: I would not allow him to pull me into temptation.

“Spoilsport,” Ray said, and I laughed.

“Yes, Ray.”

I then climbed on the bed and picked up Gracie, listening to her babble as I laid her out on my chest, the two of us horizontal with Ray crowding in on the side.

“This is exactly why the air conditioner is on, isn’t it?” I asked, and he grinned.

“It’s better for her anyway, but …” 

He kissed my shoulder before shifting some more to kiss me properly, then sat up and made me get up as well, and there we were, toboggan-style, Ray leaning back against the pillows, warm against my back and Gracie warm on my chest. 

The warmth outside was oppressive, while the warmth inside was dear. Outside it smelled of rotting banana peels and gasoline (perhaps it is exaggerated for those of us used to Nupiak, but those are the smells that I can distinguish first when I come to Toronto in the summer), but inside the stale air of the hotel could not hide Ray’s natural scent and Gracie’s sweet lavender powder and the lingering smell of _baby_ that any parent will tell you is real. 

Outside was a city that seemed clean to the rest of the world but still had trash, still had noise; inside was my family, beautiful and kind. Outside everything was hot and muggy, while inside and on this bed was only warmth. When Gracie was a newborn, Ray would hold her in a pose that duplicated the Madonna and Child, his shock at war with his joy over _this,_ a creation he’d had part in. There was also stark terror, but we were told this was natural. We were also told we’d grow out of it, but others seem to have reached that milestone already, and Ray and I were convinced we’d only stop worrying about Gracie when she was - well, once we were dead we assumed we’d be at peace and no longer afraid.

But the metaphor has gone on too long: all I wanted was to stay there with my warm daughter and beautiful husband and cool hotel room. 

“We’ll need to leave by quarter of six,” I said with a sigh.

“Only if we have reservations,” Ray said. “Renee called about ten minutes ago - she says she caught something.”

“Oh, dear. Perhaps we should -”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t. If she’s contagious and we get on a plane,” Ray said, not bothering to finish.

“You’re right,” I said, and relaxed further, my head back on Ray’s right shoulder. He nuzzled my temple, the heat of his breath cooling quickly.

“Besides, I got a funny feeling she wasn’t telling the whole story,” he said. 

“I find that highly unlikely, Ray. I will also point out that you are altering my responses from relaxation to interest.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get too comfy. If you fall asleep, Gracie’s gonna fall off you and then off the bed. Meanwhile, I heard someone else over at Renee’s, so I think maybe what she caught was - hey now, I was about to be crude in front of the offspring,” Ray said. “Sorry, baby.”

Gracie was asleep, but I appreciated his discretion. I held her close to me and slowly rolled to one side to put her next to Ray, and Ray’s hand came up to bracket her. Then I rolled back to take a nap, Ray’s other hand on my chest.

A morning walk, vampires vanquished, a park found for a small child to run in, followed by stultifying meetings, seminars, and workshops that seemed diametrically opposed to maintaining the right, and then a small nap with my husband and our child: a mixed day, but a proper ending.


End file.
